La chimiothérapie induit une baisse de la fertilité en exerçant une toxicité directe sur les ovaires entrainant une diminution du stock ovocytaire. Couramment utilisé dans le traitement du cancer du sein, le cyclophosphamide (Cy) est une des drogues reconnue comme la plus gonadotoxique. Récemment, il a été proposé que le Cy provoquait une déplétion folliculaire par une entrée en croissance massive des follicules au repos. L’Hormone Anti-Müllérienne (AMH) étant un des facteurs régulant la sortie des follicules primordiaux de la réserve ovarienne, nous avons émis l’hypothèse que cette hormone pourrait limiter la gonadotoxicité du Cy. Nous avons montré qu’un traitement par AMH recombinante chez des souris pubères traitées par Cy, permettait effectivement de limiter la déplétion folliculaire. Sur le plan fondamental, nous avons mis en évidence que l’autophagie pouvait être un des mécanismes impliqués dans l’inhibition du recrutement folliculaire exercée par l’AMH. Enfin, la méthode de référence consistant à évaluer la réserve ovarienne chez la souris étant particulièrement longue et fastidieuse, nous avons développé une technique de comptage folliculaire automatisé en utilisant des méthodes d’intelligence artificielle, et plus particulièrement une approche de « deep learning». / Chemotherapy induces infertility by exerting a direct toxicity on the ovaries, resulting in a depletion of the follicular stockpile. Cyclophosphamide (Cy), widely used for breast cancer, is recognized as one of the most gonadotoxic agent. Recently, it has been proposed that Cy gives rise to follicular depletion by a massive growth of resting follicles which are then destroyed. Since Anti-Müllerian Hormone (AMH) is one of the factors regulating primordial follicles activation, we hypothesized that this hormone might limited Cy-induced gonadotoxicity. We have shown in pubertal mice that recombinant AMH injections are able to preserve primordial follicle loss Cy-induced and might improve fertility outcome after treatment. In addition, we provide evidence that autophagy could be one of the mechanisms involved in the inhibition of follicular recruitment by AMH. At least, nowadays, the “gold standard” method of evaluating ovarian reserve in mouse is a process particularly time-consuming and tedious. We developed a new methodology of automatic primordial follicles detection and counting within mouse ovaries, using modern artificial intelligence methods, especially deep learning approach.

This thesis aims to discover, understand and appreciate the history of New Port Richey. New Port Richey's growth was affected by many of the same social changes taking place all over Florida, most notably the coming of the railroad, the popularity of the automobile, and the land boom of the 1920s. Post-World War II prosperity, pest control, air conditioning, and interstate highways attracted people to this city nicknamed the "Gateway to Tropical Florida." Unique to this area was the Legend of Chasco, an invented tradition to draw tourists and new residents to the area, and the beautiful Pithlachascotee River meandering through the heart of town as it makes its way to the Gulf of Mexico. New Port Richey hoped to become the "Hollywood of the South." What remains distinctive about New Port Richey today? What are its special features and characteristics that separate it from hundreds of other locales in the Tampa Bay metropolis? My methodology is simple; I will analyze and evaluate information gathered from available primary and secondary sources: Interviews, observations, newspapers, books, articles and government documents. Chapter one analyzes the invented tradition of Chasco, which is a part of the history and heritage of this community. New Port Richey wished to cash in on the land boom of the 1920s. Having little history of its own, the invented tradition of Chasco was born, first celebrated in 1922; it is still celebrated today. Chapters two and three chronicle the history, as well as the tales of New Port Richey, from its first inhabitants and pioneer settlers to present-day New Port Richey. Chapter four introduces the land known as the Starkey Wilderness Park and Preserve, a supplier of West Pasco's freshwater supply, which lies just east of the city. Starkey donated several thousand acres to the Southwest Florida Water Management District for his dream of permanently protecting the land and its resources for future generations. Uncontrolled growth and development has eliminated evidence of New Port Richey being the "Gateway to Tropical Florida." Land and water conservation needs to be a top priority. New Port Richey, no longer has that "special something."

This research examines historic preservation, sustainability, and environmental hazards in the face of climate change in reference to World Heritage Sites; particularly focusing on the question: Can UNESCO World Heritage Sites be conserved and protected in the face of climate change and environmental hazards? There are 1,121 World Heritage Sites listed by UNESCO and are categorized as cultural, natural, or a mix of both. The majority of these sites are at risk from different environmental hazards that could threaten their existence or long-term survival; however, policy initiatives can mitigate some of these impacts. It was discovered that every continental region, with the exception of Oceania, had a site considered to be the most vulnerable. There were 27 sites deemed most vulnerable, only 2.4% of the World Heritage Sites. Most of these sites were located along the Pacific Coasts of Asia, and both North and South America. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2020. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

As the environmental impacts of the energy usage of the world today becomes more and more evident, enhancement of energy performance of the already existing building stock becomes more urgent. Buildings belonging to the cultural heritage are often the ones that are most difficult to deal with in this context. The subject of this thesis is the use of building simulation of historic buildings. The task here is to identify and when necessary develop simulation tools and methods that are suitable for planning of retrofitting strategies in historic buildings, and to identify and analyze what demands such tools and methods would have to fulfill, in what contexts different simulation strategies are suitable, how the demands on the tools might be met and what results and how the results would facilitate the decision making process in the most optimal way. A powerful means to acquire such analyses is the use of whole-building simulation. In the case of historical buildings there are several aspects to take into consideration, determining the choice of simulation tool and method. This thesis includes Investigation of the variability of the demands on simulation tools and methods that the historic buildings pose, and its implication on complexity of the simulation process, and suggestion of a complexity index tool. Investigation of the whole-building simulation process and how it complies with the demands identified, and how the exergy concept can be used, exemplified by a case study. Identification of a need for a tool and method for a large amount of cases not easily covered by abundantly available tools and methods Suggestion of a tool and method to address these cases, and presentation of a case study where the suggested tool and method have been applied, with good agreement between the simulated and measured values. One important feature of the suggested tool is the Very Small Wall-part Method, that includes the assessment of especially damage prone points into the whole-building simulation model, otherwise unable to accommodate these points. Another is the damage risk assessment feature where a mould risk prediction tool is presented. / <p>QC20120920</p>

The urban landscape is a diverse environment that is constantly evolving. Such change does not remove and replace all of the remnants of the city\'s past, however, and the remaining artifacts become key pieces of local identity as a result of their persistence. Even so, artifacts are also complex entities and their definition and value can be drastically different given the context in which they exist. Nonetheless, artifacts can be broadly understood as interactive elements in the urban landscape that become enmeshed in their surrounding community, and serve a vital role as a result. This enquiry examines that role of artifacts in the urban landscape and seeks to uncover how such a role can inform effective design practice into the future. / Master of Landscape Architecture

No description available.

No description available.

<div><div><div><p>Foodborne pathogens form biofilms as a survival strategy in various unfavorable environments, and biofilms are known to be the frequent source for infection and outbreaks of foodborne illness. Therefore, it is essential to understand the pathogenicity of bacteria in biofilms and methods to inactivate biofilm-forming microbes from food processing environments, including school cafeteria or other community-based food production facilities, and to prevent foodborne outbreaks. Pathogen transmissions occur primarily through raw or under cooked foods and by cross contamination during unsanitary food preparation practices. Then, pathogens can form biofilms on the surface and become persistent in food production facilities and can be a source for recurrent contamination and foodborne outbreaks. In this study, our first aim was to use L. monocytogenes as a model pathogen to study how an enteric infectious pathogen isolated from biofilm modifies its pathogenesis compared to its planktonic counterpart. Both clinical and food isolates with different serotypes and biofilm-forming abilities were selected and tested using cell culture and mouse models. L. monocytogenes sessile cells isolated from biofilms express reduced levels of the lap, inlA, hly, prfA, and sigB and show reduced adhesion, invasion, translocation, and cytotoxicity in the cell culture model than the planktonic cells. Oral challenge of C57BL/6 mice with food, clinical, or murinized-InlA (InlAm) strains revealed that at 12 and 24 h post-infection (hpi), L. monocytogenes burdens are lower in tissues of mice infected with sessile cells than those infected with planktonic cells. However, these differences are negligible at 48 hpi. Besides, the expressions of inlA and lap mRNA in sessile L. monocytogenes from intestinal content are about 6.0- and 280-fold higher than the sessile inoculum, respectively, suggesting sessile L. monocytogenes can still upregulate virulence genes shortly after ingestion (12 h).</p><p>After learning biofilm isolated L. monocytogenes cells have similar virulence potential as the planktonic counterparts, our next goal was to effectively prevent or inactivate biofilms using food-grade natural microbials. Since L. monocytogenes cells are usually found in multi-pathogen biofilm in nature, I combined two food-grade broad-spectrum natural antimicrobials, chitosan nanoparticles (ChNP) and ε-poly-L-lysine (PL), as ChNP-PL nanoconjugates and tested its function on single or mixed culture biofilms of L. monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. ChNP- PL not only was able to significantly (P<0.05) prevent the biofilm formation but also inactivate pre-formed biofilms when analyzed by crystal violet staining and plate counting. In vitro cytotoxicity analysis (LDH and WST-based assays) using an intestinal cell line, indicated ChNP- PL to be non-toxic. In conclusion, our results showed ChNP-PL has strong potential to prevent the formation or inactivation of preformed polymicrobial biofilms of foodborne pathogens in food processing environment. Application of ChNP-PL could inhibit the colonization of foodborne pathogens, minimize cross-contamination during food production, and eventually reduce foodborne outbreaks.</p></div></div></div>

The frequent occurrences of natural and technological disasters have incurred grave loss of life and damage to property. For mitigating the miserable aftermaths, multi-robot teleoperation systems have been developed and deployed to cooperate with human rescuers in post-earthquake scenarios, and to sample, monitor and clean pollutants in marine environments. With a bidirectional communication channel, human users can deliver commands/requests to guide the motions of the remote robots, and can receive visual/audio feedback to supervise the status of the remote environment, throughout multi-robot teleoperation. Furthermore, the remote robots can send force feedback to human operators to improve their situational awareness and task performance. This way, a closed-loop multi-robot teleoperation system becomes bilateral in which coordinated robots physically interact and exchange energy with human users, and hence needs to be rendered passive for safe human-robot interaction. Beyond guaranteeing closed-loop passivity, the control of a bilateral multi-robot teleoperation system faces two challenging problems: preserving the communication connectivity of the remote robots; and dispatching the teleoperation authority to multiple human users. Because wireless transmission of radio/acoustic signals between the remote robots is constrained by their distances, bilateral multi-robot teleoperation control must coordinate the motions of the remote robots appropriately so as to maintain their communication network connected. Further, multiple human users can send possibly conflicting teleoperation commands to the remote robots, a distributed authority dispatch algorithm is thus needed for the remote robot network to recognize and follow the most urgent user commands at runtime. This thesis develops an energy shaping strategy to preserve the connectivity of the remote robots, and to dispatch control authority over the remote robots to human users, during bilateral multi-robot teleoperation. Chapter 1 introduces the application background of multi-robot teleoperation as well as the state-of-the-art development in related research areas. In Chapter 2, a dynamic interconnection and damping strategy is proposed to reduce and constrain the position error between the local and remote robots to any prescribed bound during bilateral teleoperation. Chapter 3 derives a gradient plus damping control from a bounded potential function and then unifies it into an indirect coupling framework to preserve all communication links of an autonomous multi-robot system with time-varying delays and bounded actuation. On these bases, Chapter 4 develops a dynamic feedforward-feedback passivation strategy to preserve all communication links and thus the connectivity of the tree network of the remote robots while rendering the bilateral multi-robot teleoperation close loop passive. Specifically, by blending the sliding variable in Chapter 2 with the bounded potential function in Chapter 3, the dynamic passivation strategy decomposes the dynamics of the remote robots into a power-preserving interconnection of two subsystems, and regulates the energy behaviour of each subsystem to preserve the tree communication connectivity of the remote robots. To handle time-varying communication delays, the strategy further transforms the communication channels between the local and remote robots into a dynamic controller for passivating bilateral teleoperation. Superior to existing controls, the strategy using a bounded potential function can circumvent numerical instability, reduce noise sensitivity and facilitate future extensions to accommodate robot actuator saturation. On the other side, Chapter 5 designs a distributed and exponentially convergent winners-take-all authority dispatch algorithm that activates the teleoperation of only human users with the most urgent requests in real time. After formulating the problem as a constrained quadratic program, we employ an exact penalty function method to construct a distributed primal-dual dynamical system that can solve the problem at an exponential rate. Because the equilibrium of the system changes with user requests, we then interconnect the dynamical system with physical robot dynamics in a power-preserving way, and passivate closed-loop multi-robot teleoperation using multiple storage functions from a switched system perspective. Finally, Chapter 6 provides some conclusive remarks and two problems regarding connectivity preservation and authority dispatch for future study. / Graduate

Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Since the city’s founding in 1821, Indianapolis has hosted a public market, situated on Market Street, between Delaware and Alabama Streets. The City Market served as an economic engine for Indianapolis, connecting rural farmers with urban communities and providing business-venture opportunities for a growing immigrant population. This thesis examines the evolution of the City Market’s historic and cultural importance in the urban landscape of Indianapolis through three critical periods. This study, moves chronologically through the building’s historical development from inception to reinvention in the modern era. Peeling back the layers of City Market history reveals the dynamic needs of the city, a colorful reflection of urban economic life. The final chapter suggests feasible ways to incorporate this building’s robust and colorful past into the space through proposed interpretation.