Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a significant worldwide cause of chronic illness and mortality and one of the most common admitting diagnoses in the United States. Persons with COPD are at increased risk for deconditioning during hospitalization, which can lead to decreased functional status at discharge. Disease-related factors and elements of the hospital environment make older adults with COPD vulnerable to hospital-associated functional status decline. The purpose of this dissertation was to identify activity factors that contribute to hospital-associated functional status decline in older adults with COPD by promoting functioning during hospitalization. This predictive correlational study is a secondary analysis of a pre-existing dataset. Patients with COPD were pulled from the larger parent study sample for comparison with patients without COPD. The convenience sample consisted of 111 patients with COPD and 190 patients without COPD. Subjects were 46.5% male, 53.5% female, and a mean age of 66 years. All subjects were patients admitted to a pulmonary unit and received an intervention protocol designed to address mobility barriers related to COPD and hospitalization. Statistical analysis explored the number, type, and timing of activity events in relation to the selected functional status outcomes of discharge disposition, length of hospital stay, and 30-day readmission rates for hospitalized older adults with COPD. Multivariate and bivariate analyses results indicated ambulation to the bathroom, ambulation outside the patient room, and number of days to first out-of-bed activity were significant predictors (p < 0.05) of patient discharge to home; days to first activity and ambulation were significant predictors (p < 0.05) of reduced length of stay; none of the variables were predictive of 30-day readmission. Patients with COPD experienced longer lengths of stay and more non-weight bearing activity than patients without COPD in this sample. These findings provide a foundation for future research to explore hospital environmental factors influencing mobility, determine optimal modes of activity during hospitalization, and examine potential cost savings associated with promotion of early mobility. Findings help explain the effects of physical activity during hospitalization and may aid development of nursing interventions to prevent or alleviate functional status decline in this vulnerable population. / 2 years

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Ion Mobility Spectrometry (IMS) is an analytical technique for separation of charged particles in the gas phase. The history of IMS is not very old, and in this century, the IMS technique has grown rapidly in the advent of modern instruments. Among currently available ion mobility spectrometers, the DTIMS, FAIMS, TWIMS, DMA are notable. Though all the IMS systems have some uniqueness in case of particle separation and detection, however, all instruments have common shortcomings. They lack in resolution, which is independent of mobility of different charged particles and they are not able to separate bigger particles (20 120 nm) with good accuracy. The work presented here demonstrates a new concept of IMS technique at atmospheric pressure which has a resolution much higher than that of the currently available DTIMS (Drift Tube Ion Mobility Spectrometry) instruments. The unique feature of this instrument is the diffusion auto-correction. Being tunable, It can separate the wide range of particles of different diameters. The working principle of this new IMS technique is different from the typical DTIMS and to simply put, it can be considered as an inversion of commonly used technique, so termed as Inverted Drift Tube (IDT).The whole work performed here can be divided into three major phases. In the first phase, the analytical solution was derived for two new separation techniques: IPF (Intermittent push flow) and NSP (Nearly stopping potential) separations. In the next phase, simulations were done to show the accuracy of the analytical solution. An ion optics simulator software called SIMION 8.1 was used for conducting the simulation works. These simulations adopted the statistical diffusion (SDS) collision algorithm to emulate the real scenario in gas phase more precisely. In the last phase, a prototype of experimental setup was built. The experimental results were then validated by simulated results.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Ion mobility spectrometry is a powerful technique for the study related to molecule. The work of tow major applications are introduced in this paper. The first application is the optimization of parameters in CCS. The accurate calculation of the collision cross section for multiple molecules is a long-time interested topic in the research for substances detection in micro scale. No reliable analytical approach to calculate the collision cross section has been established to date. Different approaches rely on different mechanism will provide different results in significant extent. This work introduce a method for the determination of parameters in the Lennard Jones potential. Experimental data combined with numerical computation was the fundamental strategy during the optimization of the parameters. In the experiment, electrospray is used as the ion source of IMS while a nebulizer was utilized to electrify the aromatic compounds. New parameters show no less accuracy and equal efficiency while can explain the physical meaning of the collision more clearly. The second application is the trace detection of explosives with very low concentration. The detection of explosives is an important topic in security, while the detection will be difficult due to the low vapor pressure of explosives. In this work, two types of devices are designed for the trace detection of explosives at an extremely low concentration. TNT is selected as the explosives in the experiment. The experiment succeed to reach a sensitivity of 1 part per quintillion, and even find out a linear relationship between the logarithm of TNT concentration and TNT vapor pressure.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The Internet has substantially embraced mobility since last decade. Cellular data network carries majority of Internet mobile access traffic and become the de facto solution of accessing Internet in mobile fashion, while many clean-slate Internet mobility solutions were proposed but none of them has been largely deployed. Internet mobile users increasingly concern more about their privacy as both researches and real-world incidents show leaking of communication and location privacy could lead to serious consequences. Just the communication itself between mobile user and their peer users or websites could leak considerable privacy of mobile user, such as location history, to other parties. Additionally, comparing to ordinary Internet access, connecting through cellular network yet provides equivalent connection stability or longevity. In this research we proposed a novelty paradigm that leverages concurrent far-side proxies to maximize network location privacy protection and minimize interruption and performance penalty brought by mobility.To avoid the deployment feasibility hurdle we also investigated the root causes impeding popularity of existing Internet mobility proposals and proposed guidelines on how to create an economical feasible solution for this goal. Based on these findings we designed a mobility support system offered as a value-added service by mobility service providers and built on elastic infrastructure that leverages various cloud aided designs, to satisfy economic feasibility and explore the architectural trade-offs among service QoS, economic viability, security and privacy.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Gas-phase ion/ion covalent modification was coupled to ion mobility/mass spectrometry analysis to directly correlate the structure of gaseous ubiquitin to its solution structures with selective covalent structural probes. Collision cross-section (CCS) distributions were measured prior to ion/ion reactions to ensure the ubiquitin ions were not unfolded when they were introduced to the gas phase. Ubiquitin ions were electrosprayed from aqueous and methanolic solutions yielding a range of different charge states that were analyzed by ion mobility and time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Aqueous solutions stabilizing the native state of ubiquitin generated folded ubiquitin structures with CCS values consistent with the native state. Denaturing solutions favored several families of unfolded conformations for most of the charge states evaluated. Gas-phase covalent labeling via ion/ion reactions was followed by collision-induced dissociation of the intact, labeled protein to determine which residues were labeled. Ubiquitin 5+ and 6+ electrosprayed from aqueous solutions were covalently modified preferentially at the lysine 29 and arginine 54 residues, indicating that elements of secondary structure, as well as tertiary structure, were maintained in the gas phase. On the other hand, most ubiquitin ions produced in denaturing conditions were labeled at various other lysine residues, likely due to the availability of additional sites following methanol and low pH-induced unfolding. These data support the conservation of ubiquitin structural elements in the gas phase. The research presented here provides the basis for residue-specific characterization of biomolecules in the gas phase.

The hypothesis being tested in this study is that students who move from place to place and attend a variety of schools exhibit a level of school achievement below that attained by students from a more stable population. The particular area of investigation was the relationship between the physical mobility of children on the move to industrial areas, and their school achievement as measured by their scholastic grades.

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MSc Physiotherapy, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand / Background and purpose of the study The length of stay for patients with stroke in some South African government hospitals has been shown to be inadequate and there is little information on the physical impairments and functional abilities of this population once they return to the community. An assessment was done of the strength, range of movement and the presence of pain experienced by patients with stroke in the Daveyton community and the relationship between these impairments and the functional abilities of these patients was established. Research methods and procedures employed This was a quantitative study using a descriptive cross sectional study design. Thirty-four conveniently sampled patients with stroke were assessed in their Daveyton homes. The functional measures used were the Modified rivermead mobility index (MRMI) and Barthel index (BI). The strength was assessed using a hand-held dynamometer, range of movement (RoM) with a standard universal goniometer and pain with the Eleven faces pain scale. The significance of the study was set at 0.05 and the relationships between impairments and functional abilities were expressed using the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. Results Significant differences were found between the strength, as well as the RoM of the affected and unaffected sides (p < 0.05). The muscles most affected by were: Biceps, Gastrocnemius and Tibialis Anterior. The smallest strength difference was found in Gluteus maximus. The ranges of movement most affected were: shoulder flexion and elbow extension. The smallest difference was found in knee extension. Eighty-five percent of the sample attained scores indicating that they were independently mobile (measured by the MRMI), and 82% were independent in activities of daily living (measured by the BI). There were good correlations between the patients’ strength impairments and their functional abilities (r = 0.54 to 0.79) and mobility (r = 0.51 to 0.76). Functional abilities and mobility had moderate to good relationships with active range of movement of shoulder flexion, lateral shoulder rotation and dorsiflexion. The percentage of patients experiencing pain was 73%, but pain displayed no relationship with functional ability (r = 0.14) and mobility (r = 0.15). Conclusion Most people living with stroke in the Daveyton community are functionally independent despite the high prevalence of pain. Stroke results in significant strength and active range of movement deficits on the affected side. Most strength impairments correlated well with the functional ability and mobility of this sample, but active range of movement impairments that influenced functional measures were mainly shoulder and ankle movements.

Part of the inspiration for this project is the excellent development and changes of Shanghai, where the author lives. At present, urbanization is more and more serious, and the urban population density continues to increase. To deal with this kind of phenomenon, the infrastructure and transportation of the city should be developed continuously. Think about 40 years from now. The city will be in an unpredictable state.Unquestionably, at that moment, single ground traffic is far from handling the traffic load of the entire city. This thought is evident when the author stands on the Oriental Pearl Tower. She saw skyscrapers are landing everywhere. How will people walk through skyscrapers in the future? What should be the embodiment of their traffic freedom? Concept-wise, the author hopes to encourage people to think more boldly about thepossibility of flying. The author speculates the development direction of the future city based on the early research. Then use it as the background to explore the user demands. It is a process of repeatedly investigating the development, including collecting information, identifying target users, brainstorming, sketching, modeling and rendering, etc. These steps are often alternated due to some feedback or new inspiration. The result of the project is a city air taxi, Geely Sooyun. This concept is mainly aimed at business tourists in Shanghai. In current years, the population of business travelers is increasing. However, the time wasted in traffic jams is a real pain for these groups. Geely Sooyun provides a more pleasant and meaningful trip by uninterrupted and efficient transportation between buildings.

The sensor nodes in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) and Mobile Sensor Networks (MSNs) can be prone to failures due to limited resources and/or the harsh environments where they are deployed. The network may be subject to partitioning if such failures are experienced by the cut-vertex nodes in the system. In case of partitioning, connectivity of the nodes in disjoint partitions with the sink node is disrupted. This not only affects the data delivery but also the possible cooperation and coordination of the nodes in handling certain events. To restore the connectivity of a partition with the rest of the network, network topology should be adjusted through either exploiting existing mobile nodes in the network or introducing additional relay nodes (RNs) to the network. However, both solutions pose certain challenges. In the former case, the mobility of the nodes requires significant energy consumption and thus the movement distance should be minimized. In addition, if the scope of the damage is too wide, determining the nodes to be relocated and their final locations is another challenge. In the latter case, determining the number of RNs and a self-configuring scheme for their movement destinations need to be tackled. In case of unavailability of sufficient RNs to provide connectivity with stable links to the whole network, another solution can be providing intermittent connectivity to the partitions by employing RNs as Mobile Data Collectors (MDCs). A mixed solution where some of the RNs are employed as MDCs and some as stationary RNs raises the challenge of determining the number of stationary RNs and identifying their locations, assigning MDCs to serve partitions uniformly in such a way that the tour lengths of MDCs are minimized and the load among the MDCs are balanced. In this dissertation, we address the connectivity restoration problem in partitioned WNSs and MSNs due to large scale damages. We present centralized and distributed approaches while considering four cases: 1. Minimizing the movement cost of the nodes while utilizing existing nodes in the network in case of the availability of the mobile nodes/actors. 2. Minimizing the number of relay nodes to be used and their movement cost in case of the lack of mobile nodes/actors in the network. 3. Maximizing the number of nodes served with a stable link while not exceeding the maximum tour length defined on MDCs when a mixed solution is required where some or all of the RNs are employed as MDCs. 4. Considering QoS constraints and rendezvous waiting time when multiple MDCs are in use. The effectiveness of all proposed approaches are validated through extensive simulation experiments.