Extracellular microenvironment, including its components and biophysical parameters such as matrix structure and stiffness, is a crucial determinant of cellular function. There exists interdependency between cellular behaviors and the extracellular matrix (ECM), whereby cells are constantly sensing and modifying their surroundings in response to physical stress or during processes like wound repair, cancer cell invasion, and morphogenesis, to create an environment which supports adaptation. To date, knowledge of the distinct regulatory mechanisms of this complex relationship is little, while the urge is evident as it plays a significant role in understanding tissue remodeling. Cells are observed to align with the parallel arrays of collagen fibrils found in tissues such as bone, tendon, and cornea, suggesting the importance of ordered matrices in defining cell functions. In this study, epitaxial growths of ordered two-dimensional collagen matrices were created, with parallelly aligned fibrils on muscovite mica, and novel triangular pattern matrix on phlogopite mica. Using Fluorescence and Atomic Force Microscopy, we were able to observe cell polarization along with stress fiber formation and matrix deformation at high resolution. Cells were observed to be able to penetrate between collagen fibrils and generate traction anisotropically to polarize. These ordered collagen matrices serve as an excellent model to study cellular remodeling of ECM in vitro, in which this fundamental apprehension of cell-matrix relationship is of crucial importance to manipulate the system and obtain desired cell functions.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, August, 2009. / Release of full electronic text on OhioLINK has been delayed until September 1, 2012. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 110-113)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, August, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. Release of full electronic text on OhioLINK has been delayed until September 1, 2012. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 110-113)

ITC/USA 2014 Conference Proceedings / The Fiftieth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 20-23, 2014 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, CA / This paper presents an effective multi-layer background modeling method to detect moving objects by exploiting the advantage of novel distinctive features and hierarchical structure of the Codebook (CB) model. In the block-based structure, the mean-color feature within a block often does not contain sufficient texture information, causing incorrect classification especially in large block size layers. Thus, the Binary Ordered Dithering (BOD) feature becomes an important supplement to the mean RGB feature In summary, the uniqueness of this approach is the incorporation of the halftoning scheme with the codebook model for superior performance over the existing methods.

This thesis consists of two parts, both of which involve the study of algebraic structures constructed via the multiplication of modules. In the first part we look at Hall algebras. We consider the Hall algebra of a cyclic quiver algebra with relations of length two and present a multiplication formula for the explicit calculation of products in this algebra. We then look at the case of a cyclic quiver with two vertices and describe the corresponding composition algebra as a quotient of the positive part of a quantised enveloping algebra of type Ã₁ We then look at quotients of Hall algebras of self-injective algebras. We give an abstract result describing the quotient of such a Hall algebra by the ideal generated by isomorphism classes of projective modules, and also a more explicit result describing quotients of Hall algebras of group algebras for cyclic 2-groups and some related polynomial algebras. The second part of the thesis deals with Green rings. We compare the Green rings of a group algebra and the corresponding Jennings algebra for certain p-groups. It is shown that these two Green rings are isomorphic in the case of a cyclic p-group. In the case of the Klein four group it is shown that the two Green rings are not isomorphic, but that there exist quotients of these rings which are isomorphic. It is conjectured that the corresponding quotients will also be isomorphic in the case of a dihedral 2-group. The properties of these quotients are studied, with the aim of producing evidence to support this conjecture. The work on Green rings also includes some results on the realisation of quotients of Green rings as group rings over ℤ.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Mathematics, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Committee Chair: Tetali, Prasad; Committee Member: Duke, Richard; Committee Member: Heitsch, Christine; Committee Member: Randall, Dana; Committee Member: Trotter, William T.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Texas at El Paso, 2009. / Title from title screen. Vita. CD-ROM. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-119).

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The main results of this dissertation are various algorithms related to partially ordered sets. The dissertation basically consists of two parts. The first part treats algorithms that generate ideals of partially ordered sets. The second part concerns the generation of partially ordered sets themselves. First, we present two algorithms for listing ideals of a forest poset. These algorithms generate ideals in a Gray Code manner, that is, consecutive ideals differ by exactly one element. Both algorithms use storage O(n), where n is the number of elements in the poset. The first algorithm traverses, at each phase, the current ideal being listed and runs in time O(nN), where N is the number of ideals of the poset. The second algorithm mimics the first but eliminates the traversal and runs in time O(N). This algorithm has the property that the amount of computation between successive ideals is O(1). Secondly, we give orderly algorithms for constructing acyclic digraphs, acyclic transitive digraphs, finite topologies and finite topologies and finite lattices. For the first time we show that the number of finite lattices on 11, 12, and 13 elements are 37622, 262775, and 2018442, respectively, and the number of finite topologies on 8 and 9 elements are 35979 and 363083, respectively. We also describe orderly algorithms for generating k-colored graphs. We present, in particular, an algorithm for generating connected bicolorable graphs. We also prove some properties of a canonic matrix which might be generally useful for improving the efficiency of orderly algorithms. / Graduate