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Within mammals and other vertebrates, males are often found to be the more infected sex and are more likely to suffer from mortality or adverse effects due to parasite infections compared to females. This is certainly true in humans, as mortality from infectious diseases is heavily male-biased. Sex-differences in both susceptibility and parasite exposure are two suggested mechanisms underlying the observed male bias. Studies from wild vertebrates that report sex-biased parasitism however, are usually cross-sectional and conducted in a single parasite-host system at a specific time point or even within a specific population. There is increasing evidence to suggest however, that sex-differences in the wild might be more dynamic and context-dependent. Understanding the contexts within which sex-differences are observed might not only provide a better understanding of the causes and consequences underlying sex-biased parasitism, but might also provide better insight into the role of host sex in host-parasite dynamics and epidemiology. This thesis aims to study sex-differences in parasite infection at the individual as well as a population level using the wild system of the wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) and its natural parasite community. To address this key aim, I conducted paired field and laboratory experiments to investigate sex-differences in susceptibility, infection risk and immune responses in the wood mice system. Through experimental immunisations and diet manipulations, I addressed how the sexes differ in their vaccine-induced immune responses and the role of nutrition in driving these sex differences. I then investigated sex-differences in parasite infection at the population level by using a 6 year-long longitudinal dataset of multiple populations of wood mice and a community of ~14 parasite and pathogen species. Specifically, I tested whether there were consistent sex-differences in parasite prevalence and intensity across different parasite species, years, woodland field sites, and host condition. Finally, using the same long-term dataset, I addressed sex-differences in the fitness and survival consequences of infection and treatment. I analysed data from large-scale, multi-year helminth removal experiments to test whether anthelmintic treatment reduces helminths in wild wood mice, if this reduction impacts mouse condition and survival, and importantly, if this effect is sex-specific. To conclude, I discuss my findings and their implications both for applied translational research as well as fundamental research in disease ecology.

Art is a powerful form of communication between artists and audiences. In this thesis, I will explore two questions that emerge from the literature on art as a means of communication and connection between artist and audience: 1) how can technology be used to augment the sense of psychological connection between the audience and artist? and 2) why do we like sad art? To answer the first question, Chapters 2 and 3 present experimental data showing that listening to music while wearing haptic devices (versus no haptics) and headphones (versus speakers) increases empathy, parasocial bond, and loyalty towards the artist and also decreases feelings of loneliness in the listener. Results indicate that feelings of social presence mediate the relationship between these immersive technologies and these measures of psychological connection to the artist. To answer the second question, Chapter 4 presents data from five experiments. Studies 1 and 2 show that framing a text as art versus not-art increases liking for the negative emotions expressed in it. Study 3 showed that there was an effect of art/not-art on liking even after controlling for differences in perceived fictionality between art/not-art. Study 4 found that appropriation mediates the effect of art/not-art on liking and, thus, explains liking for sad art. Study 5 controlled for a possible confound in the study design and found that the results replicated. Together, this thesis explores art as a means of communication and connection by providing new insights on the use of technology to enhance connection with artists and by finding empirical evidence to support the philosophical debate on the enjoyment of sad art. These studies shed light on the ways in which art can be used to connect with others and also connect with ourselves and our own emotions.

Incorporating high-fidelity analysis methods in multidisciplinary design optimization necessitates efficient sensitivity evaluation, which is particularly important for time-accurate problems. This thesis presents a new discrete adjoint formulation suitable for fully coupled, non-linear, dynamic FSI problems. The solution includes time-dependent adjoint variables that arise from grid motion and chosen time integration methods for both the fluid and structural domains. Implemented as a generic multizone discrete adjoint solver for time-accurate analysis in the open-source multiphysics solver SU2, this provides a flexible framework for a wide range of applications. Design optimization of aerodynamic structures need accurate characterization of the coupled fluid-structure interactions (FSI). Incorporating high-fidelity analysis methods in the multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) necessitates efficient sensitivity evaluation, which is particularly important for time-accurate problems. Adjoint methods are well established for sensitivity analysis when large number of design variables are needed. The use of discrete adjoint method through algorithmic differentiation enables the evaluation of sensitivities using an approximation of the Jacobian of the coupled problem, thus enabling this approach to be applied for multidisciplinary analysis. This thesis presents a new discrete adjoint formulation suitable for fully coupled, non-linear, dynamic FSI problems. A partitioned approach is considered with finite volume for the fluid and finite elements for the solid domains. The solution includes the time-dependent adjoint variables that arise from the grid motion and chosen time integration methods for both the fluid and structural domains. Implemented as a generic multizone discrete adjoint solver for timeaccurate analysis in the open-source multiphysics solver SU2, this provides a flexible framework for a wide range of applications. The partitioned FSI solver approach has been leveraged to extend the dynamic FSI capabilities to low speed flows through the introduction of a densitybased unsteady incompressible flow solver. The developed methodology and implementation are demonstrated using a range of numerical test cases. Optimal design for steady, coupled FSI problems are firstly presented before moving to the building blocks of dynamic coupled problems using single domain analysis, for both structural and fluid domains in turn. The new unsteady incompressible fluid solver, for both the primal and adjoint analysis, are verified against a range of well-known benchmark test cases, including problems with grid motion. Finally, applications of coupled dynamic problems are presented to verify both the unsteady incompressible solver for FSI as well as the successful verification of the discrete adjoint sensitivities for the transient response of a transonic compliant airfoil for a variety of both aerodynamic and structural objective functions.

The APOBEC3 gene family of cytosine deaminases has a diverse range of functions which have not been fully elucidated. The human APOBEC3 gene family is thought to be involved in the restriction of viruses as well as retrotransposons, however recently the importance of APOBEC3 has been highlighted in oncology with the discovery of an APOBEC3-mediated mutational signature in cancer genomes. Nevertheless, the regulation of APOBEC3 gene expression and APOBEC3-mediated mutagenesis has not been fully elucidated and it is a focus of this thesis. In this thesis, APOBEC3 was primarily studied in the context of breast cancer and non-small cell lung cancer. Here, I link endogenous and exogenous sources of replication stress with driving APOBEC3B gene expression and activity. Conversely, alleviating replication stress by nucleoside supplementation, inhibiting oncogenic signalling or inhibiting DNA replication stress signalling, reduced APOBEC3B gene expression and activity. Furthermore, I investigated whether cigarette carcinogens could induce APOBEC3 transcription, however I was unable to find a general mechanism through which cigarette carcinogens induce APOBEC3 transcription and promote APOBEC3-mediated mutagenesis. Lastly, I showed that specific APOBEC3 genes are upregulated early in tumourigenesis during dysplasia. Additionally, I show that APOBEC3B promotes chromosomal instability through incomplete replication of genomic DNA. Our data suggest that APOBEC3B promotes copy number heterogeneity in addition to point mutation heterogeneity in the early stages of cancer development. Elucidating the regulation and function of APOBEC3 in cancer, will further our understanding of cancer initiation, progression and treatment resistance.

Background: Influenza pandemics are public health emergencies that can have potentially serious consequences. The 2009-10 influenza A(H1N1) pandemic was the first pandemic of the 21st century, and neuraminidase inhibitor (NAI) treatment was an important component of pandemic influenza mitigation plans around the world. While NAIs were licensed on the basis of reducing duration of illness in infected patients, their effectiveness in reducing complications, particularly in patients with pandemic influenza is less clear. Evaluating the impact of NAI treatment on outcomes of public health interest in patients with pandemic influenza is, therefore, crucial to informing future pandemic influenza preparedness plans. The main aim of this thesis was to evaluate the impact of NAI treatment on hospitalisation in patients with pandemic influenza. Methods: This thesis used an interdisciplinary approach to address the thesis aim. The first part of the thesis used an Individual Participant Data (IPD) meta-analysis of clinical data to derive NAI effectiveness estimates, and the second part used computational and health economic modelling methods to extrapolate the NAI effectiveness estimates to assess public health impact. A total of five studies were performed to address the thesis aim. In the first two studies, IPD meta-analyses were performed using a mixed-effects logistic regression, and mixed-effects negative binomial regression models, respectively, to estimate the effectiveness of community-based NAI treatment on the risk of subsequent hospital admission (Study 1) the effectiveness of in-hospital NAI treatment on the risk of subsequent length of hospital stay (LoS) (Study 2). In the third study, a novel behavioural model was developed (based on the COM-B model of behaviour change) and integrated with an agent-based epidemic model (ABM) to explore the impact of potential public health interventions on improving NAI treatment collection rates in patients (not at high-risk) during a pandemic. In the fourth study, this coupled behavioural-epidemic model was extended to include a discrete event simulation (DES) to assess the impact of community-based NAI treatment on hospital admissions, and NAI treatment given on hospital admission on hospital bed occupancy during a pandemic scenario. In the final study, a health economic decision tree model was used to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of community-based NAI treatment in a range of pandemic influenza scenarios. Results: Using a global pooled dataset with clinical data on patients with laboratory-confirmed and clinically suspected A(H1N1)pdm09, the first study found that in a population of patients with severe influenza, community-based NAI treatment was associated with a reduction in the likelihood of hospital admission, compared to no NAI treatment [odds ratio: 0.24; 95% confidence interval (95% CI): 0.20-0.30). The second study found that an NAI 'treatment-at-admission' policy would reduce the subsequent LoS by 19% (incidence rate ratio: 0.81; 95% CI: 0.78-0.85), when compared to later/no NAI treatment. Using an empirically validated behavioural model, in the third study, a coupled behavioural-epidemic ABM indicated that public health interventions geared towards improving people's 'Capability' and 'Opportunity' are likely to improve NAI collection rates during an influenza pandemic. Study 4 found that public health interventions that seek to improve people's 'Capability' to collect NAIs could in turn result in a reduction in peak hospitalisation during a pandemic by 37.5% (through improved NAI collection rate). Further, when improved community-based NAI treatment collection was combined with a 'treat-at-admission' (with NAI) policy for hospitalised patients, peak hospital bed occupancy could be reduced by up to 41%, when compared to no NAI treatment. Finally, the decision tree model suggested that, across pandemic scenarios, community-based NAI treatment would be cost-saving for patients at high-risk of complications from pandemic influenza. Community-based NAI treatment was only found to be cost-saving for the whole population in higher severity influenza pandemics. Conclusions: When interpreted in the context of the limited previous evidence on this topic, the findings across studies indicate that NAI treatment, both community-based and in-hospital, are beneficial to high-risk patients with severe influenza, and also tend to be cost-saving in this group of patients. A combination NAI treatment strategy that combines improved NAI treatment compliance and a 'treat-at-admission' strategy could result in significantly reduced hospital bed occupancy, particularly during severe influenza pandemics. The findings of this thesis support current advice on pandemic influenza treatment and shed valuable insight for future pandemic preparedness planning.

Can medical advice from other participants in online health social networks impact patient safety? What can we do alleviate this problem? How does the accuracy of information on such networks affect the patients?. There has been a significant increase , in recent years, in the use of online health social network sites as more patients seek to access health information and connect with other patients with the same or a similar disease online. Yet, the above questions have not been adequately addressed in the literature. This dissertation focusses on addressing these issues. Patient to patient portals (online health networks) are health social networks that typically bring together people with similar health ailments. They also provide an ideal platform for patients to give experiential evaluations on the effectiveness of care and treatments and offer advice to other patients. Further the portals are accessible 24x7. While health information from patient-to-patient portals empowers patients, it can also lead to a compromise in patient safety. Crowdsourcing measures also present real dangers to patient safety. The objective of this research is to investigate the factors that are associated with misinformation in online patient portals to provide recommendations that impact both policy and practice. More broadly we explore the impact of question related issues, attributes about the patient asking the question and the responder, disease related factors, network factors, and cohesive groups. Another important goal is to provide a mechanism to detect and predict potential misinformation in such patient portals. The analysis can be done at three levels: (a) Thread Level (a collectivity of discussions about a topic): Essay 1 (b) Response Level (a post): Essay 2 and (c) Group Level (Cohesive sub-groups): Essay 3. The next few sections detail each of these essays. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

We aimed to establish whether and over what time course haemopoietic progenitor cells are released in the peripheral circulation after myocardial infarction (MI) in humans. We investigated the expression of CD34+ and novel stem cell marker CD133+ on peripheral blood stem cell and also the time course of their release after ischaemic insult. We also investigated the stem cell expression of various endothelial markers like CD31+ and CD144+. We recruited 5 patients with acute ST segment elevation MI, 5 patients with non-cardiac chest pain and 5 healthy controls. 20ml of peripheral blood was obtained after informed consent on days 1-7, 15 and 30 on patients with MI and non-cardiac chest pain and days 1, 4 and 7 on healthy controls. There was no significant increase in the haemopoietic progenitor cells in the MI group when compared to the control. Furthermore, these progenitor cells did not show an increased expression of endothelial markers CD31+ and CD144+. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF), Interleukin-6 (IL-6) Stromal derived factor (SDF-1a) were significantly elevated in the MI group when compared to healthy controls. The VEGF peaked at day 4 after MI. Other chemo-attractants like monocytes chemo-attractant protein (MCP-1), Interleukin-8 (IL-8) were not elevated. Preliminary results in a small number of patients reveals that haemopoietic progenitor cells are not mobilised in peripheral circulation after myocardial ischaemia. Furthermore these haemopoietic progenitor cells also failed to show increased expression of endothelial markers. These data highlight that haemopoietic progenitor cell mobilisation does not occur in all patients with myocardial ischaemia and that de novo release of progenitor cells from the bone marrow is unlikely to be an important mechanism for myocardial repair.

Burn rate in homogeneous premixed charges can be enhanced by flame acceleration caused by turbulence generated in the flow field and distortion of the flame front, by placing obstacles in the path of the propagating flame front. The work presented here makes use of the above phenomenon of using obstacles to enhance burn rate in spark-ignition engines. From the evaluation of heat loss to work done ratio and from constant volume combustion bomb experiments the obstacled surface has been optimized. The applicability of the optimized surface has been demonstrated by single cylinder engine tests, the results of·which show improvement in engine performance and has been compared with published data of a commercial I.D.I. engine.

Computational Notebook platforms are very commonly used by programmers and data scientists. However, due to the interactive development environment of notebooks, developers struggle to maintain effective code organization which has an adverse effect on their productivity. In this thesis, we research and develop techniques to help solve issues with code organization that developers face in an effort to improve productivity. Notebooks are often executed out of order which adversely effects their portability. To determine cell execution orders in computational notebooks, we develop a technique that determines the execution order for a given cell and if need be, attempt to rearrange the cells to match the intended execution order. With such a tool, users would not need to manually determine the execution orders themselves. In a user study with 9 participants, our approach on average saves users about 95% of the time required to determine execution orders manually. We also developed a technique to support insertion of cells in rows in addition to the standard column insertion to help better represent multiple contexts. In a user study with 9 participants, this technique on a scale of one to ten on average was judged as a 8.44 in terms of representing multiple contexts as opposed to standard view which was judged as 4.77.

SARS-CoV-2 is caused by a pathogenic and highly transmissible beta coronavirus leading to severe infections in immuno-compromised individuals. This study first evaluates the primers used in the Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) to detect SARS-CoV-2 by understanding how mutations might affect the primer efficiency with the SARS-CoV-2 sequences. Mutations on the Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 are the most important as the spike protein mediates the viral entry into host cells. This study tracks the course of mutations on the spike protein by focusing on the haplogroups of the sequences across the world. A comprehensive database linking three important, currently available databases is curated as part of this study to fill the gaps caused by sequencing errors. Further, this study exploits the data generated by the Illumina and Oxford Nanopore next generation sequencing methods to study the evolution of mutations in a single Septuagenarian patient over an infection period of 102 days using the gene analysis software Geneious Prime.

Hybrid organic-inorganic perovskite (HOIP) compounds have garnered widespread research attention due to their outstanding optoelectronic properties while being solution-processable semiconductors. When used as the active material in a photovoltaic device, three-dimensionally connected HOIPs based on methylammonium lead iodide (CH3NH3PbI3) and associated alloys have demonstrated power conversion efficiencies that have increased at an unprecedented rate, from an initial value of 3.8%, to present day efficiencies exceeding 25% in just a decade. This has made perovskites competitive with existing thin film solar cell technologies like CdTe and CIGS. Additionally, dispersions of nanoparticles of similar perovskite materials have shown controllable optical emission properties with narrow emission linewidths and large (~95%) photoluminescence quantum yields, making them attractive materials for light emitting applications. However, three-dimensionally connected perovskites typically suffer from poor ambient stability, impeding their feasibility in devices for long term use.Numerous recent research efforts have shown that lower dimensional perovskites, notably two-dimensional layered structures, possess increased ambient material stability. Layered perovskite compounds correspond to structures in which the 3D perovskite structure has been sliced along a specific crystallographic direction, leading to a loss of connectivity in one dimension. Therefore, champion photovoltaic devices made with layered perovskites have only achieved efficiencies around 15% due to the loss of charge transport in one direction, presenting a fundamental tradeoff between stability and performance. Understanding the optoelectronic and structural properties of layered perovskites is therefore essential for both optimizing device efficiencies and proposing design rules for future materials discovery.Layered perovskite compounds can be generated through two strategies -- partial anion or partial cation substitution during synthesis. This report will discuss the synthesis and characterization of three different systems -- one generated through the partial anionic substitution of iodide (I-) anions with the pseudohalide thiocyanate (SCN-), and two by partial cationic substitution of methylammonium (CH3NH3+) with butylammonium (C4H9NH3+) and 2-(4-biphenyl)ethylammonium (C6H5C6H4CH2CH2NH3+), respectively. Structural characterization with X-ray and electron diffraction reveals the difficulties in producing phase pure samples from solution processing, and the origin and impact of these impurities on electronic properties will be discussed. Transport properties were measured with contactless time-resolved microwave conductivity measurements and compared with values seen in 3D perovskites. We find that the layered perovskite systems possess similar in-plane mobilities to their three-dimensional counterparts, but with increased higher-order carrier recombination, resulting in shorter lifetimes.

This thesis draws on fieldwork among practitioners of contemporary spirituality in Hebden Bridge, a small town in Yorkshire, UK, between December 2018 and November 2019. It presents an ethnography of the cosmological understandings and lived experiences of these practitioners, focusing on their language, metaphysics, and praxis. From the 1960s onwards, migration into the declining industrial town of Hebden Bridge created a thriving New Age spiritual community, and which solidified with increasing gentrification, and provides a fruitful case study for the anthropology of religion and spirituality today. Building on diverse ethnographic research in many spiritual practices in the town, this thesis focuses on astrology, Tarot card divination, gong baths, neo-shamanism, meditative yoga, and 5Rhythms ecstatic dance. Analysing interviews, facilitator discourses, in-class instructions, and embodied experiences and practices, this thesis contributes to ongoing debates regarding the ontological turn in anthropology. A diverse thesis that focuses on diverse practices, this thesis explores how contemporary astrology relates itself to gender, and what planets and symbols become in an astrological context. Questions of how anthropologists can understand our interlocutors' epistemologies are explored in relation to Tarot readings, and debates over the ontological turn and difference are addressed with an ethnographically sensitive approach to exploring how difference is created in spirituality in the context of gong baths. Ambiguity of belief in contemporary spirituality is explored in the context of neo-shamanism, where I argue for an expansion of possible ethnographic subjects to include objects that our interlocutors do not provide a clear metaphysics of. This thesis concludes with two chapters addressing the relation between philosophical non-duality on the one hand, and lived appearances of duality in daily life on the other, in two different spiritual practices, touching on themes common to contemporary spirituality in many fieldsites. Drawing from the ontological turn, this thesis argues for a recursive methodology that writes anthropological description through the creation of homologies with ethnographic encounters and fields. I argue that this expands the ontological turn past concerns with concept creation, enabling the reflexivity of the ontological turn to open up anthropology for engagements with broader questions of speculative anthropology and further exploration of the relations between anthropological texts and the fields they are based on. In engaging with these diverse themes, I contribute to anthropology a clear understanding of how the ontological turn can be relevant for the study of religion, in particular contemporary spirituality, through refining recursivity as a methodology. This is particularly useful for contemporary spirituality, which as a highly diverse social movement requires a methodology that is able to approach the relation between the anthropologist and their multiplicity of fields with sensitivity and openness.

Drawing on a year-long fieldwork in Delhi's e-waste sector, my thesis follows the struggles to formalise e-waste recycling in India. I approached the issue of responsible e-waste recycling by exploring the after-effects of the 2016 E-waste (Management) Rules that introduced the principle of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). The rules defined the responsibility of electronics producers, recyclers, and retailers in terms of targets, and made provisions for compliance and the fulfilment of EPR through third party Producer Responsibility Organisations (PRO). During my fieldwork, I worked closely with one such for-profit PRO that I call Sahih Kaam, which strives to provide services up to the highest environmental standards. Sahih Kaam goes beyond compliance with government regulations and aims to change the way in which e-waste recycling works in India. The company works to implement the EPR policy tool, which introduced the principle of competition and market into responsible recycling, to replace the infamous informal market and its harmful and unsanitary practices. The thesis traces the effects of the policy tool as it is put into practice in search of the right, environmentally responsible, and sustainable way to recycle. The thesis foregrounds the PRO's struggles to even out the contradictions engendered by the ethics of responsibility and an already saturated social landscape that patterns e-waste recycling in India. I begin my exploration of e-waste's value transformations between informal and formal recovery channels by examining the pricing of e-waste, its materiality, and the way obsolete electronics break apart in the process of market exchange. I show how market exchange produces negative value through the release of toxic substances and reinforces the need for market intervention in the name of responsibility. In the absence of effective state regulation, the PRO strives to contain this negative value through "material arrangements of honesty" that is required for transparency, traceability, and auditability. Then, I examine how the PRO and scrap dealers come together to establish responsible recycling practices - an endeavour that requires cooperation between people with distinct worldviews and ethical goals. Informal scrap dealers and the PRO produce unexpected alliances for environmentally sustainable practices. The work also focuses on the complex knowledge practices involved in navigating the market, as traders seek to acquire, possess, and hide specific market dynamics. Ultimately, my ethnographic focus on the exchange relationship between the PRO and scrap dealers brings an emergent waste infrastructure into view. The thesis shows how the promise and challenge of the enterprise of formalising e-waste recycling for the PRO lies in overcoming the incommensurability of environmental ethics and economic growth. This work of commensuration effects a series of value transformations to make waste into a new productive frontier of green capitalism.

Membrane process has been widely applied in chemical and petroleum industries for removing acid gases such as CO2. The implementation of hybrid system for natural gas purification has been studied by several researchers in recent years. Systems based on combining membrane with absorption technologies are the ones that have attracted more interest as industrial applications. The system will provide a critical data for a variety of operational parameters and test industrial scenarios for the carbon capture. Aspen Custom Modeller (ACM) is applied as the modelling tool for building and integrating it into a process simulator as Aspen Plus. It was validated by existing experimental data generated in the laboratory. The membrane model also predicted similar results regarding the stage-cut against CH4 concentration in retentate to the published data with a maximum error of 5.8%. An experimental apparatus based on a powerful in situ perturbation method known as Flux Response Technology (FRT) was designed and modified for making flow measurements of Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) micro-scale membrane. A perturbation flow of one component of the gas mixture is added to a main flow of known composition flowing through the capillary at ~20ml/min and 1 bar gauge. Two different sets of data were collected of CO2 into N2 and N2 into CO2 at varying the feed pressure on the membrane side from 2 to 0.1 bar. Composition changes measured by FRT are in good agreement to the Mass Spectrometry results with a maximum error of 4%. This experimental apparatus was also used to validate the ACM membrane model and was found be in a good agreement was observed with 5% error at 2 bar gauge. The membrane-absorption hybrid system for natural gas stream containing 30 mole% CO2 is investigated and economically analysed. Membrane separation is to be applied for the bulk removal of CO2, while final purification to U.S. pipeline specifications (< 2 mole% CO2) is to be achieved by gas absorption. It was found that the separation cost for the hybrid process ($/MMSCF feed) lies between that of membrane and absorption process. The amine absorption process with MDEA is almost 50% higher than that of the hybrid system, while membrane gives the lowest separation costs. For this study, the hybrid system appeared to the be the optimum design as it gave low energy cost, low carbon emissions and high gas purity.

Popular representations of the riverine district of Majuli in Assam, Northeast India, oscillate between depictions of a calm spiritual hub and as a land possessing a bleak and melancholic future owing to annual inundation and riverbank erosion. Glancing out across these increasingly amplified transcreations, this thesis drawing on 15-months of ethnographic fieldwork examines residents' aspirations for work and dwelling along the banks of the Brahmaputra. It traces how the quotidian comes to be shaped by them but also the new horizons that they point towards as well as push away from. Attending to the contents of residents' ambitions and dread through existing and speculative projects of infrastructure and dwelling provide surfaces for a multiplicity of imagined forms of future flourishing to come into view. This approach not only opens up and enlivens the relationship between "remote" places and the state but also the ambivalent orientations on the part of residents towards the forging of new connections with the region, country and international neighbours. Amidst shrinking lands, an entrenched rural livelihoods crisis and a vitalist politics of belonging and inclusion, I argue that an analytical concern with aspirations (and their discontents) as they rise up, permeate and are framed through the above affective objects affords crucial nuance in how scholars understand and represent the lived complexity and contradictions for those who live on the banks of protean rivers and neglectful states.

The complexity of the modern manufacturing enterprise has led companies to look for techniques and methodologies for improving production performance. Lean manufacturing techniques have been applied in the US with varying degrees of success, and Theory of Constraints (TOC) has been used to emphasize the flow of production and identify performance improvement projects. One aspect of manufacturing for which there has been limited academic or industrial research till date is the impact of variation on production performance and the identification of improvement projects based on variation. This thesis develops a methodology to incorporate random and simultaneous occurrence of variability in a manufacturing facility, e.g., equipment failure, variabilities in the arrival time of raw materials and in-station processing time, to model system performance. Two measures of performance are developed corresponding to time and material. A prioritization algorithm is developed to utilize the “Coefficient of Variation” to identify a Bundle of High Variation Elements (BHVs) affecting the performance of a production system. The Bundled Variation-based Project Prioritization Model (BVPM) is a closed-loop model designed to provide decision makers with a list of projects to improve system performance while monitoring the implementation of projects.

Measuring Oxygenation of blood (SaO2) plays a vital role in patient’s health monitoring. This is often measured by pulse oximeter, which is standard measure during anesthesia, asthma, operative and post-operative recoveries. Despite all, monitoring Oxygen level is necessary for infants with respiratory problems, old people, and pregnant women and in other critical situations. This paper discusses the process of calculating the level of oxygen in blood and heart-rate detection using a non-invasive photo plethysmography also called as pulsoximeter using the MSP430FG437 microcontroller (MCU). The probe uses infrared lights to measure and should be in physical contact with any peripheral points in our body. The percentage of oxygen in the body is worked by measuring the intensity from each frequency of light after it transmits through the body and then calculating the ratio between these two intensities.

The overarching goal of this research work is to further our understanding of lipid self-assembly and its organization at an oil-water interface to support the development of synthetic lipid bilayer systems that can be used in biologically relevant fields such as membrane biophysics, protein electrophysiology, development of synthetic biomolecules, drugs, nanoparticles and other applications. Self-assembly kinetics and interfacial properties of lipid monolayers formed at a liquid-air and liquid-liquid interface are characterized using Langmuir-Blodgett trough and pendant drop tensiometer. Insights gained from these studies not only allow us to answer questions related to droplet interface bilayer (DIB; a promising technique to assemble artificial lipid membranes) formation but also enable us to manipulate properties of monolayer in order to improve the potential of droplet interface bilayer by, a) increasing the number of phospholipids that can form DIBs, b) improving the success rate of DIB formation, and c) enhancing the electrical stability of bilayers formed. Owing to its wide range of applicability, novel efforts towards improving the durability and portability of DIB system are presented. In addition, this research work aims at using Nanoscribe direct laser writing — a state-of-the-art 3D printing device, to build 3D micro-scaffolds that can support lipid monolayers and bilayers that are suitable for high resolution optical studies.

The molecular properties of transmembrane proteins and their interactions with lipids regulate biological function. Of particular interest are interfacial aromatic residues and charged residues in the core helix whose functions range from stabilizing the native structure to regulating ion channels. This dissertation addresses the pH dependence and influence of potentially negatively charged tyrosine, glutamic acid or aspartic acid side chains. We have employed GWALP23 (acetyl-GGALW5LALALALALALALW19LAGA-amide) as favorable host peptide framework. We have substituted W5 with Tyr (Y5GWALP23) and Leu residues with Glu (L12E, L14E or L16E) or Asp (L14D or L16D), and have incorporated specific 2H-labeled alanine residues within the core helix or near the ends of the sequence. Solid-state 2H-NMR spectra reveal a pKa of about 10.5 for bilayer incorporated Y5GWALP23. Solid-state 2H-NMR spectra of GWALP23-E12, –E14 and –E16 with core labels reveal little change to the orientation of the transmembrane helix over a pH range of 4 to 12.5 but modest changes in quadrupolar splitting magnitudes above pH 12.5 in DLPC bilayer membranes, with E12 peptides showing no change even at pH 13. The E12, E14 and E16 peptides display broad 2H NMR spectra in aligned DOPC bilayers, with individual resonances not being observed for the core labels. Labeling the ends of the helix at A3 and A21 provided insights into the pH-dependent unwinding of the E14 and E16 peptide helices in both lipid systems. An aspartic acid residue at position 14 shows contrasting behavior to that of its Glu counterpart. The 2H-NMR spectra for core 2H-alanines of GWALP23-D14 show a preference for a well oriented conformation in DOPC bilayers in comparison to DLPC lipids. While the core helix does not respond to pH, the helix terminals show changes in unwinding between pH 6 and 13 suggesting a possible pKa around 13. The polar but uncharged Gln residue at position 14 behaves similarly to Glu in DLPC and DOPC lipid bilayers. The Q14 peptide, however, does not titrate in either lipid and displays well-resolved sharper 2H-NMR resonances in DLPC bilayers. The combined results illustrate complex behavior for carboxyl and carboxamide side chains in bilayer membranes.

The proximal tubule (PT) plays a critical role in the reabsorption of ions, solutes and low molecular weight proteins from the glomerular filtrate. Although the PT has been known to acutely modulate ion reabsorption in response to changes in flow rates of the glomerular filtrate, whether apical endocytosis was regulated in response to changes in flow was unknown. I hypothesized that the fluid shear stress (FSS) caused by the flow of glomerular filtrate on the apical surface of the tubules would stimulate apical endocytosis in PT epithelia. I used a cell culture based parallel plate flow chamber system to test my hypothesis, and used PT cells from opossum, mice and humans in this study. I determined that FSS stimulated a rapidly reversible increase in apical endocytosis of both albumin (Megalin ligand) and dextran (fluid phase marker) in OK cells, which starts within 30 min of exposure to a FSS of 1 dyne/cm2 and the response increases linearly for at least three hours so long as FSS is maintained. This FSS-stimulated increase in endocytosis is clathrin and dynamin mediated. Primary cilia act as the principal mechanosensor in this process, and cause an increase in [Ca2+]i through the release of the ryanodine sensitive pool of calcium from the ER. In addition, purinergic signaling, triggered by the bending of cilia, is also important for both the FSS stimulated Ca2+ and endocytic responses. Lowe syndrome is a rare X linked genetic disease that affects young boys. It is characterized by the loss of OCRL a lipid phosphatase, and causes proteinuria. The FSS stimulated increase in endocytosis is ablated in OCRL depleted human PT cells, and the length of cilia in OCRL depleted cells is also higher. However, the lengthening of cilia is not responsible for the loss of FSS stimulated responses in these cells. This dissertation synthesizes our current understanding of mechanosensitive regulation of endocytic capacity in proximal tubule epithelia, suggests a mechanism that may define the reason for proteinuria in Lowe syndrome patients, and highlights areas of opportunity for future investigations.

The chamars are a Dalit (formerly "untouchable") caste group numerically prevalent across North India, traditionally associated with leatherwork and animal carcass disposal. Connoting ritual impurity according to the Hindu religious system of caste hierarchy, the term "chamar" itself is now widely considered pejorative - including among those who work in these trades. Despite such objections, in the face of enduring discrimination by wider Indian society, a sense of collective identity and solidarity remains strong amongst chamars. Many chamars - leatherworkers and non-leatherworkers alike - thus find themselves confronted by a paradox of sorts, rejecting unequivocally the logic of caste but bound together by a strong sense of caste solidarity. It is against this background that a new religious movement has flourished among chamars across North India. Based around the person and teachings of the 15th century chamar religious prophet Ravidas, the Ravidassi movement promises a collective religious identity for chamars outside the existing socio-religious order. Centred around the Punjabi city of Jalandhar, this movement has seen temples constructed across North India, including in the sacred Hindu city of Varanasi. Through these temples, religious leaders and reformers have promoted a separatist religious identity for Ravidassis, one that rejects the ritually impure status afforded to chamars as leatherworkers by Hindu cosmology. This thesis explores the rise of this new religious movement among Dalit chamars in North West India. Based on twelve months ethnographic research in and around Boota Mandi, a prominent leather-producing settlement on the outskirts of Jalandhar, it explores some of the possibilities - for dignity, self-definition, legitimation - this new movement affords to a stigmatised underclass. And it explores some of the contradictions - social, political, theological - confronting Dalit chamars who have looked to religion to escape the stigma of caste.

Harris Tweed, a woollen textile that can only be produced in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, has been trademark protected since 1910 and covered by its own Act of Parliament since 1993. According to this legislation, a tweed can only be stamped with the Orb trademark if it 'has been handwoven by the islanders at their homes in the Outer Hebrides, finished in the Outer Hebrides, and made from pure virgin wool dyed and spun in the Outer Hebrides' (1993). Despite this localised production model, the cloth is exported to over 50 countries and trademark protected in over 30. And while the emphasis on provenance might suggest that only people born and raised in the islands would be involved in its production, my research draws attention to the inclusive possibilities that the concept of 'islander' holds in this particular setting, suggesting alternative ways of thinking through notions of rootedness and belonging. Proposing an expanded concept of productive work and labour, in this thesis I foreground the active ways in which people of different origins and backgrounds navigated island life, both making a living and becoming part of its fabric by participating and elaborating on local practices and pursuing particular visions of good lives. Based on thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in the Isle of Lewis and Harris (the Outer Hebridean island where the Harris Tweed industry came to be concentrated), this research involved spending time learning from workers in the various workplaces where Harris Tweed is made - woollen mills, domestic loomsheds, Harris Tweed Authority offices, and tweed vans. This focus on the lives of workers, workplaces and work processes, I argue, offers a unique lens through which to examine the diversity of lived experiences and productive social processes that emerge as people variously navigate the complexities and contradictions of contemporary global capitalism. Further, I suggest, examining the workings of the Harris Tweed industry as well as its social and personal implications highlights the need to redefine an expanded concept of work / labour that accounts for the layered meanings and analytical potential it holds. In a region described as economically fragile, Harris Tweed has long offered local employment, contributing to population retention - despite its vulnerability to shifting global markets. I discuss how people's awareness of their shared circumstances as fellow islanders - facing particular regional challenges whether they were 'locals', 'returners' or 'incomers' - revealed a sense of shared precariousness and shared responsibility, highlighting particular resourceful practices and outlooks on the possibility of change. Discussing how people drew on (and reinterpreted) local histories and 'shared repertoires' as they navigated and made sense of their present and imagined futures, I highlight how inclusive notions of belonging encompassed people's active engagement with local practices and moral understandings, revealing how various kinds of work contributed to making the material and social fabric of the islands.

There has been an increased interest in renewable energy systems in recent years as a result of concerns on depleting fossil fuel reserves and climate change. Wind and solar energy are amongst the most popular renewable energy technologies. In order to use the full or maximum possible extent of a renewable energy resource in a region, hybrid systems extracting wind and solar energy simultaneously are a popular and obvious choice. It is desired to design hybrid systems that enhance the renewable energy output without increasing the foot print area compared to the base case of only wind or only solar energy. One potential way forward is to consider a vertical axis wind turbine with an enhanced surface area which can be used for mounting solar cells. This way the foot print area remains the same while both wind and solar power are obtained simultaneously. Renewable Energy Solutions LLC has manufactured a novel 2 m high and 2 m in diameter vertical axis wind turbine called Marilyn which has an enhanced surface area, which can be used for the aforementioned purpose. This thesis focuses on the development of a hybrid solar-wind turbine design based on the Marilyn system. Firstly, the wind and solar resource was assessed at Austin, TX using weather monitoring instruments. Typical Meteorological Year 3 (TMY3) data was also used in conjunction with the measured data to estimate the wind and solar resource at Austin, TX. Secondly, the wind turbine performance was assessed based on whether is it able to achieve grid tie in for wind power production starting at wind speeds of 3-4 m/s. It was found that replacing the current generator with different model featuring higher voltage output at lower rotational speeds could help achieve this. Based on this suggested replacement and using the wind resource data, the yearly wind energy production was estimated to be 240 kWh. Finally, a theoretical analysis was performed for estimating the yearly solar energy production. A base case analysis was first made on power production on a particular day of the year if only the top portion of every alternate face of the turbine is covered with flexible 3.4 % efficient solar cells. This analysis is subsequently extended to the case when flexible 20 % efficient solar cells cover the entire top surface of the turbine and the corresponding conservative yearly solar energy output was estimated to be 310 kWh. Thus the total yearly energy output from the Marilyn hybrid system is 550 kWh, which is around 5 % of the annual electricity usage of a typical American home

Solar cells are promising alternatives to fossil fuels as they provide a clean source of renewable energy. Organic bulk heterojunction solar cells based on semiconducting polymers have potential as a low cost alternative to silicon solar cells due to reduced material costs, mechanical robustness and simple fabrication techniques. However, polymer solar cells have relatively low power conversion efficiency (~ 10%) compared to inorganic cells which limit their commercial applications. The nanoscale morphology dependent charge transport in polymer solar cells needs to be better understood so that the morphology can be optimized for enhanced photovoltaic efficiency. The goal of this dissertation was to control the morphology of bulk heterojunction solar cells by varying processing parameters such as thermal annealing, solvent additives and donor-acceptor ratio, and to develop a deeper insight into relationship between morphology and photovoltaic performance. Three different donor polymers were studied along with two fullerene derivatives as acceptors. The materials and solar cells were characterized by UVVisible absorption spectroscopy, current vs voltage measurements, EQE spectroscopy, transient photocurrent/photovoltage and photo-generated charge extraction spectroscopy. Intermixed amorphous polymer and fullerene domains were observed as limiting factors for photovoltaic conversion. The use of solvent additives enhanced photovoltaic performance by 25% to 85 % due to the formation of a morphology of networks with crystalline polymer domains and sharp interfaces which promoted efficient exciton dissociation and enhanced mobility. Future work should include studying the effects of solvent additives on polymer orientation to improve vertical charge transport.

The objective of the present work is the development of a theoretical and numerical framework to simulate elastic-plastic waves in solids. The governing equations used include the momentum equation, continuity equation and the constitutive relation for plasticity in the Eulerian frame. The constitutive equation relates deviatoric stresses with the plastic strain. The linear constitutive relation is made non-linear by the use of Jaumann rate. The final set of equations is a system of first order, fully coupled partial differential equations with source terms. To solve these equations, the space-time Conservation Element and Solution Element (CESE) method is used. Numerical results of two dimensional elastic-plastic waves would be reported in the thesis. The results would be validated by comparisons with available experimental results and published works. The model can be further developed to aid in modeling properties and real world performance more accurately. This framework can be used to model a variety of applications like explosive welding and ultrasonic welding processes.

Graph-structured data appears in many modern applications like social networks, sensor networks, transportation networks and computer graphics. These applications are defined by an underlying graph (e.g. a social graph) with associated nodal attributes (e.g. number of ad-clicks by an individual). A simple model for such data is that of a graph signal--a function mapping every node to a scalar real value. Our aim is to develop signal processing tools for analysis of such signals de- fined over irregular graph-structured domains, analogous to classical Fourier and Wavelet analysis defined for regular structures like discrete-time sequences and two-dimensional grids.In this work, we start by reviewing the notion of a Graph Fourier Transform (GFT), which has been defined in the literature for graph signals. We examine the spatial and spectral features of circulant graphs, which accommodate linear shift-invariant operations. We describe fundamental operations such as shifting, sampling, graph-reconnection and linear filtering for signals on circulant graphs and derive associated sampling and graph-reconnection theorems. We also develop wavelet filter bank structures for multi resolution analysis of large-scale graphs.We present a method to decompose an arbitrary graph into a linear combination of circulant graphs. This helps extend fundamental operations such as sampling, filtering and multi resolution filter banks to general graphs. We present an application in the area of graph semi-supervised learning where some of the existing algorithms can be viewed as suitably designed filters defined in the GFT domain. We propose a wavelet regularized learning algorithm and evaluate the performance on some real-world datasets.

This thesis is based on 12-months of ethnographic research with conservationists and rewilders in the Scottish Highlands. At a time of escalating ecological crisis, rewilding is developing as a form of conservationism thought to be redressing denuded and damaged natures, whilst returning freedom and autonomy to nonhuman worlds. In the Highlands, rewilding has concentrated on the cultivation of wild native wood land, with a range of nonhuman beings made a part of its work. It is through an attention to this work that this study attempts to develop an understanding of rewilding's relationships with these nonhumans. Contributing to a body of ethnographic literature on this form of conservation, this thesis is attentive to the nonhuman ethics and politics of a particular set of rewilding projects. It makes the case for a nonhuman anthropology, not through the study of intimate relationships, but an attention to the structure and organisation of rewilding's work. Specifically, it attends to rewilding's production of wild habitats through its infrastructural interventions, the management and culling of deer, the wild labour of nonhuman beings and disturbance regimes. This study understands rewilding, as a way of (re)organising nature, which is forging a particular set of human-nonhuman relationships. It suggests that rewilding is (a) making nonhumans the object and subject of its work, and (b) bringing wildness into being through the work of infrastructures, and relationships of substitution, nonhuman labour and surrogacy: attempts to rearrange natures through the tempering, removal and contribution of different forms of work: both human and nonhuman. Approached in this way, this study aggregates an interest, not only with these particular enactments of rewilding, but how these natures are brought into being - and the human-nonhuman relationships which are being worked, and grown, into the nascent wilds of Scotland's Highlands.

This thesis explores shifting ideas of the secular in Kolkata, India, through an ethnographic account of socio-political life in the city's southern suburbs. This part of the city was transformed by the arrival of Bengali Hindu refugees from East Bengal from the late 1940s onwards. The refugees achieved rehabilitation and political representation to a significant degree through an alliance with communist and socialist political parties, contributing to the election of the Left Front government from 1977 onwards. However, the political culture of the city and state is transforming in the aftermath of the electoral defeat of the Left Front in 2011. The thesis explores this post-communist conjuncture in the state's political culture, and how prevalent understandings the secular respond to this changing political landscape. The parliamentary Left in contemporary India has been defined by its commitment to the constitutional ideals of socialism, secularism and democracy. The first section argues that communism allowed the refugees to achieve rehabilitation and political representation within, rather than against, the Indian state. They also reproduced religious traditions in the city that contributed to their constructions of community and political values in ways which are inextricable from each other. The second section looks more specifically at political secularism and its relation to statecraft and democratic processes in the form of constituencies in this part of the city. The political parties struggle for control of public religious spaces, which are important for securing their influence at the grassroots, and in the process articulate distinct forms of secularist politics which co-opt public rituals. They also engage in cultural politics designed to articulate secular or non-religious public spheres. Through ethnographic evocations of public life in Kolkata's southern suburbs, I suggest that the Left Front failed to achieve ideological hegemony, and its secularism never wholly displaced religious framings of political culture in the state. I argue, secondly, that the categorical formations of religion and politics - and therefore ideas of the secular based on this conceptual distinction - are ideological constructions and therefore open to constant reinterpretation. My interlocutors, both within and outside the party, remain committed to secular futures, but they creatively search for ways to articulate secularist politics which do not necessarily rely on categorical distinctions of the past. Therefore, I search for the secular with them, disaggregating the discursive constructions on which secularist politics are founded. The elusive secular is found, in my analysis, through the ways in which residents of the city continually (re)conceptualize the contours of their public, political lives.

This thesis, based on ethnographic fieldwork in India, explores how Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is mobilised by individuals, the government, NGOs and the private sector in efforts to improve the lives of fellow citizens. As such, FOSS in India must be understood as a nation building project and can be considered an inheritance of Swadeshi, Gandhi's call for India self-rule via home grown craft and technology. This is not to say that those who work to create and utilise FOSS in India do so as an explicit extension of Gandhi's legacy, though some do. Rather, the Indian FOSS community envisions this software as a way to develop the nation in particular moral and material ways and underlying their efforts is an assumption/belief that material development must be understood in moral terms. Further, Swadeshi heritage has to be understood as the corollary to the colonial legacy and the contemporary Indian FOSS movement entails complicated relationships with postcolonial entities as well as contradictory goals within the community. Using both pragmatic and idealistic arguments, Indian FOSS advocates, who are predominantly members of the middle class, push for changes in technology policy and practice at local, regional and national levels. The most common activity of the Indian FOSS community is not the creation of FOSS but its 'evangelism'. Members of the Indian FOSS community evangelise the merits of this technology to engineering students, policy makers, and the private sector. As such, FOSS is mobilised towards a particular ideology of the national good, and this ideology is valued as much as if not more than technical practices of actually creating FOSS. This study explores how the ideological project of FOSS imagines ideas of the national good as well as the ways in which it melds with traditional Indian middle-class values. Despite a sincere commitment to freedom and openness as technical and philosophical tenets, the Indian FOSS community also demonstrates limits to freedom and openness by reproducing hierarchies in class and gender. Although efforts of members of the Indian FOSS community have resulted in the adoption of pro-FOSS policies at the national level, relatively little FOSS is actually produced or used in India. Several hurdles to widespread adoption are explored. One challenge to implementing FOSS in government and industry is that the Indian government and software industry must balance desires for technological autonomy with the need for jobs from multinational corporations via outsourcing and development aid from NGOs including the Gates Foundation, with its ties to Microsoft. By attending to the sociological aspects of the FOSS community as well as the wider political, economic, and historical contexts of technology in India this study demonstrates that FOSS in India represents both similar and different concerns than it does in the West, where it was first developed. In so doing this thesis shows the value in including such contexts in the analysis of technologically concerned communities that benefit and expand the anthropology of FOSS not only in other developing nations, but in the West as well.

In this report we give a brief introduction to the multilevel models, provide a brief summary of the need for using the multilevel model, discuss the assumptions underlying use of multilevel models, and present by means of example the necessary steps involved in model building. This introduction is followed by a discussion of power and sample size determination in multilevel designs. Some formulae are discussed to provide insight into the design aspects that are most influential in terms of power and calculation of standard errors. Finally we conclude by discussing and reviewing the simulation study performed by Maas and Hox (2005) about the influence of different sample sizes at individual as well as group level on the accuracy of the estimates (regression coefficients and variances) and their standard errors.

Today's electric grid is undergoing drastic changes to evolve into a smart grid. Deregulation of the integrated and monopolistic power system into genco, transco and disco has led to tremendous competition among these players. These entities are in the process of developing innovative smart grid strategies that can improve their reliability and profit. In this thesis work, some of the smart grid initiatives by discos have been explored.;This thesis work is driven by two major objectives. The primary objective is to explore Demand Response (DR), develop its comprehensive model and to analyze various effects and implications of DR on distribution networks. The second major objective of the thesis is to integrate the developed demand response model into a microgrid market optimization. A microgrid network is a real world demonstration of smart grid that integrates and coordinates various demand side resources into its operation. For this reason, a microgrid has been chosen in this work so that it offers a broader scope where in addition to DR models, Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) and Distributed Energy Resources (DER) or Distributed Generation (DG) can also be modeled and integrated.;This thesis develops a model for DR by utilizing consumer behavior modeling considering different scenarios and levels of consumer rationality. Consumer behavior modeling has been done by developing extensive demand-price elasticity matrices for different types of consumers. These Price Elasticity Matrices (PEMs) are utilized to calculate the level of demand response for a given consumer. DR thus obtained is applied to a real world distribution network considering a day-ahead real time pricing scenario to study the effects of demand reduction and redistribution on system voltage and losses. Results show considerable boost in system voltage that paves way for further demand curtailment through demand side management techniques like Volt/Var Control (VVC).;Following this, the thesis develops a market optimization model for an islanded microgrid that includes Smart Grid elements namely DR, DERs and BESS. Comprehensive models for DR and BESS have been developed and integrated into the optimization program. Demand Side Bidding (DSB) by DR Aggregators is introduced into the proposed double sided microgrid energy market by utilizing the DR models developed. The optimization program uses Linear Programming (LP) technique to determine the dispatch schedule of DERs, BESS and the level of DR to minimize the operating cost of the microgrid market. A time series simulation of a large microgrid test system is performed to show the feasibility of the proposed market optimization.

The most important function of RFID in vehicle tracking is to store information concerning tagged elements in order to improve the overall performance of movable asset management. There is a need to discover an RFID system for the tracking of vehicles, as existing vehicle tracking systems are undependable. Experiments were performed with SIRIT, SAVI, and RF code RFID systems under differing conditions, attaching the tag to the license plate instead of the windshield. Different spacers were also tested to reduce the effect of metal surfaces on RFID signals. Preliminary experiments were performed before stationary and motion testing in order to better understand the RFID systems. Testing was also conducted to identify the angle at which the reader should be fixed and the ideal placement of the tag on the license plate. Stationary and motion testing were then performed on the three RFID systems, using different spacers and speeds, and the effect of spacers and speed on signal strength was found to be significant. In addition, environmental testing was performed on RF code systems in low temperature conditions. Upon completion of these experiments, the resulting data was analyzed to identify not only the best material to embed between tag and license plate in practical situations, but also the most effective thickness of that material and the optimum height of the reader. Finally, a benefit cost analysis was performed comparing both the RF code RFID and mobile plate hunter (MPH)-900 camera system. Results were compared for varying amounts of cars, and the analysis clearly showed that the RFID RF code system is better, compared to camera systems, for use in the tracking of vehicle license plate. Adviser: Robert E. Williams

Cuisines are among the richest and most distinctive artifacts of human culture, reflecting social structures, religious constraints, ecological choices, economic factors, historical events and, of course, gastronomical preferences. Cuisines are exemplars of human thinking and ideation process evolved over a number of civilizational constraints. While cuisines all over the world use many ingredients in common, they are distinguished by the patterns of usage of ingredients. Every cuisine can be seen as network whose nodes are the ingredients used in its recipes with links indicating which ingredients are used together. In this thesis, several cuisine networks are constructed incorporating semantic relevance between nodes using data mining and natural language processing techniques. These networks are compared in terms of their structural and statistical characteristics using techniques from graph theory and multivariate analysis. This includes calculating features such as degree distributions, clustering, diameters, assortativity, etc., as well as building correlation and co-occurrence matrices of ingredients. The features obtained from this analysis are used to organize the cuisines into a cluster hierarchy, thus clarifying the relationships between them. A set of algorithms based on machine learning and graph theoretic techniques is developed to build a culinary evaluation and recommendation system called Critic which can check the degree to which a given set of ingredients is consistent within a given cuisine for a culinary recipe. Such a system can serve as the core of a generic ideation system for generating new (recipe) ideas and for classifying given (recipes) ideas systematically into specific (cuisines) contexts.

With the advent of multi-threaded (e.g. simultaneous multi-threading (SMT) ) and/or multi-core (e.g. chip multiprocessors (CMP) [3, 4]) architectures, now the challenge is to utilize these architectures to improve performance of general-purpose applications. However, traditional parallelizing compilers often fail to effectively parallelize general-purpose applications which typically have complex control flow and excessive pointer usage. Thread-Level Speculation (TLS) have been proposed to simplify the task of parallelization by using speculative threads. Though the performance of TLS has been studied in the past, its power consumption, power efficiency and thermal behavior are not well understood. Also previous work on TLS have concentrated on multi-core based architectures and relatively little has been done on supporting TLS on multi-threaded architectures. With increasing multi-threaded/multi-core design choices, it is important to understand the benefits of the different types of architectures. The goal of this dissertation is to explore architecture techniques to efficiently implement TLS in future multi-threaded/multi-core processors. The dissertation proposes a novel cache-based architecture to support TLS in multi-threaded SMT architecture. A detailed study on the efficiency of different TLS architectures was conducted by comparing their performance, power and thermal characteristics. To improve efficiency, the dissertation proposes a novel SMT-CMP based heterogeneous architecture which combines the advantages of both SMT and CMP architectures. The dissertation also proposes novel architecture and compiler techniques to efficiently extract speculative parallelism from multiple loop levels.

Robotics is an emerging field and robots may be employed in places where human intervention is not possible. Multiple robots may work in a coordinated manner to achieve certain tasks. However one of the big problems is the detection and recovery from failures, since human intervention may not be possible. To this end we propose an autonomic self-detection and self-recovery robotics architecture based on the human immune system. In particular we look at two types of communication failure, failures caused by robot isolation and failures caused by intermittent message loss. This thesis focuses on one component of an autonomic robotic architecture namely, self failure detection mechanism in robots. Our goal is to make the robot recognize the failure encountered during its operation and send related failure information to the activation unit for further action. We propose an approach to self-detection based on observation graphs. Simulation results show that the failures were effectively detected. The proposed recognition unit is similar to T-cells in the human immune system.

The traveling wave ultrasonic motor is considered for use in haptic devices where a certain input-output relation is desired between the applied force and the resulting motion. Historically, DC motors have been the standard choice for this purpose. Owing to its unique characteristics, the ultrasonic motors have been considered an attractive alternative. However, there are some limitations when using the ultrasonic motor for force-feedback applications. In particular, direct torque control is difficult, and the motor can only supply torque in the direction of motion. To accommodate these limitations we developed an indirect control approach. The experimental results demonstrate that the model reference control method was able to approximate a second order spring-damper system.

The current study is focused on the dynamic behavior of an idealized highway bridge structure subjected to moving heavy vehicular loads using simplified representative models such as Euler beams and Kirchhoff plates. The study also successfully implemented the application of a numerical procedure called Differential Quadrature Method (DQM) to solve transient dynamic systems using conventional and generalized DQ schemes. A semi-analytical (modal method) DQ procedure proved computationally very effective to study the vehicle-bridge dynamic system.

Active disease resistance in plants is induced during the pathogen infection process that triggers multiple defense-related genes to establish broad-spectrum resistance. Several biotic and abiotic agents can mimic natural induced resistance (IR), categorized as systemic acquired (SAR) or induced systemic resistance (ISR). IR, triggered by acibenzolar-S-methyl (ASM) or plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), was evaluated on two-to-three types of tobacco in greenhouse and field studies. Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) local lesion assays monitored induction and maintenance of ASM-induced SAR over a 21 day period via proportional reduction in the number of TMV local lesions between an untreated control and ASM-treated plants. Intraspecific variation in SAR was found among tobacco types; burley and flue-cured tobaccos responded by day 3, while oriental tobacco responded between day 3 and 6. The SAR signal was greatest between 6 and 15 days following ASM application, but IR was slightly evident even at 21 days after ASM application in all three tobacco types. Bottom and middle leaves responded similarly on all sample dates, but top leaves showed the weakest SAR response. Tobacco cyst nematode (TCN; Globodera tabacum solanacearum) is one of the most destructive pathogens of tobacco in Virginia. Among four PGPR combinations tested, a mixture of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens IN937a (GB99) and B. subtilis A13 (GB122) most consistently suppressed TCN reproduction in flue-cured and oriental tobacco. Application of ASM similarly reduced final numbers of TCN cysts, but also resulted in chlorosis, stunting, and lower plant fresh weight. GB99+GB122 also suppressed TCN development and reproduction in susceptible and resistant flue-cured cultivars, but reductions by ASM were less consistent. In a split-root trial, soil amendment with GB99+GB122 in one half of an oriental tobacco root system lowered final numbers of TCN more than did ASM. ASM exhibited undesirable effects in phytotoxicity trials in flue-cured and oriental tobacco, but GB99+GB122 was not phytotoxic. When oriental tobacco seedlings were grown in a GB99+GB122-treated soil-less media, a single application of 200 mg ASM/L one week after transplanting significantly suppressed TCN reproduction in the field without phytotoxicity. Further field research is needed to confirm this effect in flue-cured tobacco.

DRAM faces two fundamental power scaling challenges in the future. Firstly, DRAM requires continuous refresh because of charge leakage, resulting in power consumption even during standby operation. As DRAM capacity quadruples with each new generation, standby power grows correspondingly and becomes a significant fraction of system power. Secondly, we are fast approaching a lower limit on DRAM voltage scaling because charge in a DRAM capacitor depends directly on voltage, and a minimum amount of charge is needed for reliable operation. Scalable standby power is achieved by exploiting typical charge leakage instead of worst-case charge leakage. Most DRAM cells have very low leakage currents and consequently long retention times. However, sparse outliers have high leakage currents and short retention times, and are the cause for frequent refreshes of the whole DRAM. More generally, retention times of DRAM cells and even whole pages vary widely, with an average retention time on the order of seconds. We propose Retention-Aware Placement in DRAM (RAPID), novel software techniques that can exploit off-the-shelf DRAMs to reduce refresh power to vanishingly small levels. The key idea is to favor allocation of longer-retention pages over shorter-retention pages, and then select a single refresh period that depends on the shortest-retention page among populated pages instead of the shortest-retention page overall. This refresh period is much higher than the default refresh period of commodity DRAMs, thereby significantly reducing the frequency of refreshes. Thus, RAPID reduces DRAM standby power to near-zero levels, yielding favorable standby power scaling despite quadrupling of DRAM capacity from one generation to the next. To overcome DRAM voltage scaling limits, we explore the long-term power-scalability of ZettaRAM™, a nascent DRAM technology. ZettaRAM is based on conventional DRAM architectures but replaces the DRAM capacitor with a new molecular capacitor. The molecular capacitor is fully charged⁄discharged if the applied voltage is above⁄below a discrete threshold voltage. Therefore, unlike a conventional capacitor, the amount of charge deposited on the molecular capacitor is independent of applied voltage. Charge-voltage decoupling holds the key for viable voltage scaling from one generation to the next and opens up two unprecedented power scaling opportunities. (1) Exploiting molecular engineering for long term power scalability: Read⁄write operations can be performed at lower voltages, while still maintaining the minimum amount of charge needed for reliable sensing. Precise tuning of molecular attributes provides an inexpensive path for scaling voltage, hence power, from one memory generation to the next, whereas conventional DRAM requires major cell redesigns to maintain a fixed charge while scaling voltage. (2) Intelligent management of ZettaRAM: While the fixed charge is voltage-independent, speed is voltage dependent. Thus, the applied voltage is padded to achieve the same speed as DRAM. A key architectural insight is leveraged to manage the speed-voltage dependence and lower the voltage even further: most of the bitline activity is caused by non-critical L2-cache writeback requests. Accordingly, slow operations (lower voltage) are applied to non-critical writebacks and fast operations (higher voltage) to critical fetches. This hybrid policy combines the power efficiency of uniformly slow operations with the high performance of uniformly fast operations, further extending ZettaRAM's power scaling advantage. The combination of RAPID and ZettaRAM leads to a power-scalable form of DRAM, extending the roadmap of this important memory technology.