A high level of “environmental awareness” in the participating countries will likely raise the success of the Kyoto Protocol negotiated in Paris in 2015. In this context it is of interest to investigate the diffusion of environmental awareness, and also the (economic) factors, on which this diffusion depends. This paper addresses these questions for the regions of the Russian Federation, which are sufficiently diverse regarding cultural and economic issues. From a formal point of view, a “Multiple-Indicator-Multiple- Causes” (MIMIC) approach, based on a variety of “indicators” for environmental awareness, derived from search entries in c Yandex, and a variety of “causes”, economic and socio-economic factors, is applied. The empirical results point first to a strong dependence of environmental awareness on the level of GRP per capita. Moreover, the diffusion seems to spread from the eastern part of Russia towards the western regions.

No description available.

“Blood vessel mimics” (BVMs) are tissue-engineered constructs that serve as in vitro preclinical testing models for intravascular devices. The Cal Poly Tissue Engineering lab specifically uses BVMs to test the cellular response to stent implantation. PLGA scaffolds are electrospun in-house using the current “Standard Protocol” and used as the framework for these constructs. The performance of BVMs greatly depends on material and mechanical properties of the scaffolds. It is desirable to create BVMs with reproducible properties so that they can be consistent models that ultimately generate more reliable results for intravascular device testing. Reproducibility stems from the consistency of the scaffolds. Thus, scaffolds with consistent material and mechanical properties are necessary for creating reproducible BVMs. The aim of this thesis was to characterize the reproducibility of the electrospun PLGA scaffolds using fiber diameter measurements and compliance testing. Initial work in this investigation involved designing and testing several experimental electrospinning protocols to obtain smaller fiber diameters, which have been shown to elicit more ideal cellular responses. The most successful protocol in that regard was then analyzed for the reproducibility of fiber diameters and compared to the reproducibility of the Standard Protocol. After determining that the Standard Protocol produced scaffolds with more consistent fibers, a large-scale reproducibility study was performed using this protocol. In this expanded study, both fiber diameter and compliance were analyzed and used to characterize the scaffolds. It was established that the scaffolds demonstrated inconsistent mean fiber diameter and mean compliance. The current standard electrospinning protocol therefore does not create PLGA scaffolds with statistically reproducible properties. Future modifications should be made to the electrospinning parameters in order to reduce variability between the scaffolds and future studies should be performed to determine the acceptable range of properties.

The shadow economy is a topic that has been around for many years now. The increasing regulations on cash and the endeavours public authorities made to enlarge the tax base show a clear intention from the public sector to pursue any activity that is carried out outside the borders of what is taxable. This paper uses the Currency Demand Approach (CDA) to estimate the monetary base M0 for Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain and for each year from 2002 to 2021 and, subsequently, calculate the size of the shadow economy as a percentage of GDP. To estimate the CDA equation, we employed fixed effects panel data regression. The results show an average shadow economy value of 9,33% for Greece; 13,43% for Italy; 10,78% for Portugal; and 11,11% for Spain. The results have also been compared with those of previous studies that have estimated the shadow economy of other countries using the MIMIC approach, showing that the CDA tends to give lower estimates. Additionally, a common trend was found for the studied countries since after the financial crisis of 2008 and 2014, all of them reached peak values in their shadow economies.

Une grande d’attentions ont été accordée au cours des années récentes à l’étude de l'économie souterraine dans de nombreux pays développés et en voie de développement. Les conséquences et les implications politiques associées à cette partie ambiguë de l’économie ont suscité des inquiétudes parmi les économistes et les gouvernements qui ont été amenés à proposer diverses mesures et méthodes d’estimation. Il n’est cependant pas facile d’évaluer avec exactitude et précision la taille (l’ampleur) et la tendance de l’économie souterraine à cause de sa nature cachée (dissimulée, discrète). Néanmoins, certaines techniques ont été utilisées par les économistes pour estimer directement ou indirectement la taille de l’économie souterraine. Dans ce manuscrit de thèse, nous nous intéressons à l’économie souterraine comme un phénomène universel ayant une manifestation unique et incontournable sous forme d’activités à la fois légales et illégales. Le but principal de cette thèse est de proposer des « méthodes floues » (méthode de la logique floue) pour en mesurer la taille et la quantité. Dans un premier temps, nous avons construit un cadre conceptuel nous permettant d’étudier les spécificités de l’économie souterraine. Ensuite, de nombreuses (plusieurs, différentes…) méthodes communes d’estimation (méthodes en vigueur pour l’estimation) de l’économie souterraine ont été examinées. Les conditions de base de l’application du concept flou (de la logique floue) ainsi que les conditions initiales de l’économie souterraine ont été explorées (interrogées) pour voir si elles correspondent les unes aux autres (si elles font la paire, si elles sont cohérentes). Dès lors que la logique floue permet une modélisation rapide même avec des données imprécises et incomplètes et des fonctions non-linéaires d’une complexité arbitraire et d’atteindre la simplicité et la flexibilité, nous avons été encouragés à appliquer cette méthode. Trois méthodes floues ont été proposées pour évaluer l’économie souterraine sur la base des enquêtes initiales réalisées pendant la période 1985-2010, à savoir : la modélisation floue appliquant la moyenne et la variance, la modélisation floue appliquant le regroupement flou, la modélisation floue utilisant de multiples indicateurs et causes avec des données floues. En dernier lieu, la taille de l’économie souterraine a été mesurée pour la France, l’Allemagne, l’Italie, les Etats-Unis et le Canada. Les résultats issus de ces différentes méthodes floues ont ensuite été comparés avec ceux obtenus par d’autres méthodes conventionnelles. Il peut être affirmé que les méthodes proposées dans ce travail de recherche sont qualitativement comparables avec les méthodes couramment utilisées pour évaluer l’économie souterraine. / Much attention has been paid in recent years to the study of the underground economy in many developed and developing countries. The consequences and the policy implications linked with this ambiguous part of the economy have raised concerns among economists and governments that led to proposing various measures and estimation methods. It is not however easy to estimate accurately and precisely the size and trend of the underground economy due to its hidden nature. But, some techniques have been used by economists to directly and indirectly estimate the size of the underground economy.In this thesis, we have focused on the underground economy as a universal phenomenon having its unique and inescapable manifestation in the form of both legal and illegal activities. The main purpose of this thesis is to propose the fuzzy methods to measure the size and the amount of the underground economy.We first constructed a conceptual framework that allowed us to study the specifications of the underground economy. The common numerous estimation methods of the underground economy and their weaknesses and strengths were reviewed then. The basic conditions of applying the fuzzy concept and the initial conditions of the underground economy were investigated to see if they match. Since fuzzy modeling allows for rapid modeling even with imprecise and incomplete data and lets us to model non-linear functions of arbitrary complexity and achieve simplicity and flexibility, we were encouraged to apply fuzzy method.Two fuzzy methods were proposed to estimate the underground economy based on initial investigations during the period 1985-2010, including: the fuzzy modeling applying mean and standard deviation, the fuzzy modeling applying fuzzy clustering and Multiple Indicators and Multiple Causes (Structural Equation Modeling) with Fuzzy Data.Finally, the size of the underground economy was measured for France, Germany, Italy, USA and Canada and the results of these fuzzy methods were compared with other conventional methods. It can be claimed that the proposed methods in this work are qualitatively comparable to the common methods used to estimate the underground economy.

Causal discovery is the problem of learning causal relationships between variables from a set of data. One interesting area of use for causal discovery is the health care domain, where application could help facilitate a better understanding of disease and treatment mechanisms. The health care domain has recently undergone a major digitization, making available a large amount of data for use in learning algorithms, available in formats such as medical images or electronic health records. This thesis aims to explore the application of causal discovery on electronic health record data. We provide an overview of the field of causal discovery and identify 3 contemporary methods for causal discovery on time-series data which we apply on a preprocessed version of the MIMIC-IV data set. Each causal discovery method is run on time-series comprising of electronic health record data related to hospital stays for patients with sepsis. We provide an empiric report of the overlap between the learned graphs from different hospital stays as a heuristic evaluation measure. We find that it is possible to identify common themes in the learned graphs between different causal discovery methods, indicating potential practical value of causal discovery on electronic health record data. We also identify important considerations for future application and evaluation, such as incorporating extensive domain knowledge, and provide suggestions for future work. / Kausal upptäckt är problemet med att lära sig orsakssamband mellan variabler från en uppsättning data. Ett intressant användningsområde för kausal upptäckt är hälso- och sjukvårdsdomänen, där tillämpning kan bidra till en bättre förståelse av sjukdomar och behandlingsmekanismer. Sjukvårdsdomänen har nyligen genomgått en stor digitalisering vilket gör en stor mängd data tillgänglig för användning i inlärningsalgoritmer, tillgänglig i format som medicinska bilder eller elektroniska patientjournaler. Denna avhandling syftar till att utforska tillämpningen av kausal upptäckt på elektroniska patientjournaler. Vi ger en översikt över området för kausal upptäckt och identifierar 3 samtida metoder för kausal upptäckt på tidsseriedata som vi tillämpar på en förbearbetad version av MIMIC-IV-datauppsättningen. Varje identifierad metod för kausal upptäckt körs på tidsserier som består av elektroniska patientjournaler relaterade till sjukhusvistelser för patienter med sepsis. Vi tillhandahåller en empirisk rapport över överlappningen mellan de inlärda graferna från olika sjukhusvistelser som ett heuristiskt utvärderingsmått. Vi finner att det är möjligt att identifiera gemensamma teman i de inlärda graferna mellan olika kausala upptäcktsmetoder, vilket indikerar potentiellt praktiskt värde av kausal upptäckt på elektroniska patientjournaler. Vi identifierar också viktiga överväganden för framtida tillämpning och utvärdering, såsom att integrera omfattande domänkunskap, och ger förslag för framtida arbete.

Methylone, Ethylone, Methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), and α-Pyrrolidinopentiophenone (α-PVP) collectively referred to as bath salts are a new trend of illicit substances known as synthetic cathinones. Designed by chemically modifying the core structure of the compound cathinone, synthetic cathinones became prevalent within the United States around the mid-2000s. As a cheap and less controlled alternative to methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ecstasy), it has become heavily abused, prompting emergency scheduling by federal regulators. Although regulations have been placed to halt incoming traffic of these drugs, lack of ground efforts still leave a large percentage of bath salts available. This study is two-fold, as it seeks to develop an extraction method for the development of Volatile Organic Compound profiles associated with various synthetic cathinones; and also determine the odorant used for canine recognition. The initial goal of this dissertation was to develop an extraction method to characterize various cathinone derivatives. The present study concluded that by employing a Polydimethylsiloxane Divinylbenzene (PDMS/DVB) coated fiber along with complimentary soft ionization techniques, the volatile components and all parent drugs could be identified within sixteen synthetic cathinone cases. The second goal of the dissertation was to assess and enhance the detection capabilities of narcotic detection teams. Canine field detection is routinely used to stop the increasing distribution influx of drugs into the United States that go undetected by standard procedures currently employed. Although currently canines can detect a multitude of drugs including heroin, cocaine, MDMA, and methamphetamine; this study revealed that more than ten canine teams (throughout south Florida) were not able to detect the presence of synthetic cathinones with current training material. While concerns have grown concerning the safety and reliability of canines being trained on various illicit substances, this research aimed to develop a safe, efficient, controlled alternative to training any canine for detection in the form of a Controlled Mimic Permeation System (COMPS). Field examination concluded that 3,4-methylenedioxypriophenone was the odorant responsible for the canine recognition of the cathinone derivative odor. Therefore a mimic training aid was developed and deployed within the field to enhance the detection capabilities of various canine teams.

As a first step to producing a shape selective catalysts or enzyme mimic, two preorganized host molecules were synthesized. Binding studies of the two hosts with a variety of guests in three solvents demonstrated that an important driving force in the association was the formation of C-H???X-R hydrogen bonds (X = halogen). A deuterated host was utilized to further examine the formation of the C-H???X-R hydrogen bonds. In an effort to place functionality in the hydrophobic pocket of these hosts, two methods were developed. The first utilized directed ortho metallation to place electrophiles above and/or directed into the cavity. Perlithiation of the host could lead to sixty-nine products but reaction conditions and host rigidity limited product formation. This reaction technique led to the placement of carboxylic acid groups onto the host and the isolation of twelve products. Two different positions of the carboxylic acids (endoand exo-) direct the orientation of the guest. 1D- and 2D-NMR were utilized to examine how the was orientated inside the host. The second method employed to place functionality on the host, sited a tripodal zinc binding ligand on the side of the hydrophobic pocket of the host. The synthesized host was able to bind zinc strongly and in a 1:1 manner.

The rates of non-medical prescription drug use in the United States (U.S.) have increased dramatically in the last two decades, leading to a more than 300% increase in deaths from overdose, surpassing motor vehicle accidents as the leading cause of injury deaths. In rural areas, deaths from unintentional overdose have increased by more than 250% since 1999 while urban deaths have increased at a fraction of this rate. The objective of this research was to test the hypothesis that cultural, economic, and environmental factors prevalent in rural America affect the rate of substance use disorder (SUD) in that population, and that diagnosis of these disorders across rural and urban populations may not be generalizable due to these same effects. This study applies measurement invariance analysis and factor analysis techniques: item response theory (IRT), multiple indicators, multiple causes (MIMIC), and latent class analysis (LCA), to the DSM-IV abuse and dependency diagnosis instrument. The sample used for the study was a population of adult past-year illicit drug users living in a rural or urban area drawn from the 2011-2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health data files (N = 3,369| analyses 1 and 2; N = 12,140| analysis 3). Results of the IRT and MIMIC analyses indicated no significant variance in DSM item function across rural and urban sub-groups; however, several socio-demographic variables including age, race, income, and gender were associated with bias in the instrument. Latent class structures differed across the sub-groups in quality and number, with the rural sample fitting a 3-class structure and the urban fitting 6-class model. Overall the rural class structure exhibited less diversity and lower prevalence of SUD in multiple drug categories (e.g. cocaine, hallucinogens, and stimulants). This result suggests underlying elements affecting SUD patterns in the two populations. These findings inform the development of surveillance instruments, clinical services, and public health programming tailored to specific communities.

<p>This thesis describes the design, synthesis and structure-activity relationships analysis of potential inhibitors targeting the hepatitis C virus (HCV) NS3 protease. Also discussed is the disease caused by HCV infection and the class of enzymes known as proteases. Furthermore are explained why such enzymes can be considered to be suitable targets for developing drugs to combat diseases in general and in particular HCV, focusing on the NS3 protease. Moreover, some strategies used to design protease inhibitors and the desired properties of potential drug candidates are briefly examined. Synthesis of linear and macrocyclic NS3 protease inhibitors comprising a designed trisubstituted cyclopentane moiety as an <em>N</em>-acyl-(4<em>R</em>)-hydroxyproline bioisostere is also addressed, and several very potent and promising compounds are evaluated.</p> / Report code: LIU-TEK-LIC-2006:46.