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The aim of this thesis is to examine metaphors used by the state and the public in the discussion of the Chinese housing discourse (CHD) between 2010 and 2014. In particular, the focal point of the study concerns the diverging views held towards housing by the state and the public. The study considers how these views are manifested through metaphors in particular, conducting a corpus-based analysis of a series of articles published by the state's official newspaper, People's Daily, as well as their corresponding reader comments. The thesis primarily draws upon Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). This thesis also incorporates Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), Charteris-Black's (2004a) Critical Metaphor Theory, and Shi Xu's (2005) Cultural approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (CCDA) and, more specifically, what he labels as "Chinese Discourse Studies" (CNDS). Six major categories of metaphor are found to be prevalent among the state-controlled discourse and the public discourse: DISEASE, JOURNEY, WAR, FOOD, FAMILY, and NATURE. The analysis of these metaphors shows that the state favors metaphors with latent power (i.e.: knowledge) and this is represented in their preference of metaphors with strong connotations of professional power (e.g.: "doctor", "driver", "general"), whereas the public prefer representations of power that come from Chinese culture, e.g.: the hierarchy in Confucianism in FAMILY metaphors. Furthermore, it is shown that the state-controlled discourse changes its metaphor use strategy depending on the state of the market (always orienting towards a positive self-portrayal and legitimization of power), while the public tends to adopt similar metaphor categories, albeit with the intention to subvert some of them for the purposes of counter-discourse. Finally, the culture-specificity of metaphor use is also highlighted in the findings, with emphasis on the impact of Confucianism, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Yin-Yang philosophy in the construction and manipulation of metaphorical language.

Sustainable municipal solid waste (MSW) management is the key to achieve urban sustainability and circular economy via recycling materials and recovering energy from waste. It also contributes to mitigating global climate change and reducing impacts on human health and the environment. To combat the environmental impacts caused by MSW management, especially the impacts from landfills,EU Landfill Directive was introduced in 1999 to reduce the landfilled biodegradable municipal waste (BMW). After that, a series of waste directives have been put into enforcement to facilitate the establishment of sustainable MSW management in European countries. These waste directives initiated and drove the evolution of MSW management in the UK, but their realistic effects on the improvement of MSW management has not to date been investigated in detail. This study depicted the transition and assessed the performance of MSW management in Nottingham since the Waste Strategy 2000 published to respond to the EU Landfill Directive (throughout the period from April 2001 to March 2017)using the methods materials flow analysis (MFA) and life cycle assessment(LCA). To quantitatively estimate the potential energy that can be recovered from MSW, predictive models were built to estimate the lower heating value (LHV) of MSW using the two model building methods, multiple regression analysis and artificial neural network (ANN),based on 151 datasets which record the wet physical components of MSW and their measured LHV worldwide. Improvements in waste reduction, material recycling, energy recovery,and landfill prevention were observed in Nottingham because of the voluntary preventive actions and the introduction of new waste management strategies such as kerbside collection, material recovery facility (MRF) and production of residual derived fuel (RDF). MSW management in Nottingham transformed from a relatively simple model combining land filling and incineration with energy recovery to a more complex model integrating source separation, recycling, composting, pre-treating landfilled waste and incineration with energy recovery. During the period from 2001/02 to 2016/17, annual waste generation in Nottingham reduced from 463 kg/Ca to 361 kg/Ca, the recycling and composting share increased from 4.6% to 44.4%, and the landfill share reduced from 54.7% to 7.3%. These improvements resulted in a significant reduction of the greenhouse gas (GHG)emission from 1076.0kgCO2-eq./t of MSW (or 498.2kgCO2-eq./Ca) in 2001/02 to 211.3kgCO2-eq./t of MSW (or 76.3kgCO2-eq./Ca) in 2016/17. These signs of progress are believed to be driven by the EU waste directives and the associated policies and waste management targets established at both national and local levels. LHV predictive models generated using both methods (multiple regression analysis and ANN)exhibited acceptable and compatible levels of performance, based on the diagnostic tests on residuals (range and standard deviation), the standard error of the estimate(SEE) and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE). ANN models proved to be more robust in their handling of datasets of diverse quality. Models developed from both methods indicated a negative contribution of the wet food waste to LHV. Supported by the strong and significant correlation between food waste and moisture content, we concluded that the negative impact of the component with high moisture content on LHV outweighed its calorific value. This reveals that separating food waste or any other waste with high moisture content from the MSW to be incinerated can be the key to improved energy recovery efficiency. Based on the experience in analysing historical MSW management scenarios and building LHV predictive models, an alternative future scenario was proposed that assumed food waste and textile were separated at source,separately collected organic waste was treated using anaerobic digestion and residual waste was pre-treated in MRF before incineration. Based on the assessment using MFA and LCA, this future scenario could fulfil the high target to recycle 55% of household waste set by the local authority, and GHG emission from MSW management sector in Nottingham could be further reduced to as low as –142.3kgCO2-eq./t of MSW(or –40.2kgCO2-eq./Ca ). To realise this future scenario, enhanced source separation is especially important. Therefore, public education and supporting facilities on waste separation at the sources should be strengthened in the future.

In this thesis, we review various popular pricing models in the interest-rate market. Among these pricing models, we choose the LIBOR Market model (LMM) as the benchmark model. Based on market practice experience, we also develop a pricing model named the “Market volatility model”. By pricing vanilla interest-rate options such as interest-rate caps and swaptions, we compare the performance of our Market volatility model to that of the LMM. It is proved that the Market Volatility model produce comparable results to the LMM, while its computing efficiency largely exceeds that of the LMM. Following the recent rapid development in the commodity market, in particular the energy market, we attempt to extend the use of our proposed Market volatility model from the interest-rate market to the energy market. We prove that the Market Volatility model is capable of pricing various energy derivative under the assumption of absence of the convenience yield. In addition, we propose a new type of exotic energy derivative which has a flexible option structure. This energy derivative is named as the Flex-Asian spread options (FASO). We give examples of different option structures within the FASO framework and use the Market volatility model to generate option prices and greeks for each structure. Although the Market volatility model can be used to price various energy derivatives based on oil/gas contracts, it is not compatible with the structure of one of the most advanced derivatives in the energy market, the storage option. We modify the existing pricing model for storage options and use our own 3D-binomial tree approach to price gas storage contracts. By doing these, we improve the performance of the traditional storage model.

Sialic acids (SAs) are a diverse family of naturally occurring 2-keto-3-deoxy-nononic acids that are involved in a wide range of biological processes, including early fetal development, cellular recognition, and utilization by microbes. While it is clear that cell surface SAs are highly involved in the immune system, the sialylation status of individual immune cells and functions are still unknown. In this study, I combined the newly developed LC-MS/MS methods with flow cytometry and confocal microscopy to systematically study the sialylation and desialylation dynamics of macrophages at different conditions. First, I developed an accurate LC-MS/MS method to quantify free SA in human plasma with isotope-labeled standard calibration and 3,4-diaminotoluene derivatization. This method is capable to distinguish SA analogus in complex biological samples, which paves the path for dynamic SAs research. Menwhile, another LC-MS/MS method with direct SAs quantification was developed for high throughtput analysis. This method does not require complicated sample preparation and can quantify SA at 2 ng/mL. Next, I performed globally profiling of sialylation status of Raw 264.7 macrophages by flow cytometry, confocal microscopy, and LC-MS/MS. Both flow cytometry and confocal microscopy showed the predominat of a-2,3 linked SAs on the cell surface, and increase of a-2,6 linked SAs after atorvastatin treatment. Moreover, LC-MS/MS showed total SA increased 3 times upon treatment. Further experiment indicated the correlation of a-2,6 linked SAs with cell apoptosis. Finally, I systematically examined the sialylation and desialylation profiles of THP-1 monocytes after differentiation and polarization. Both a-2,3 and a-2,6 linked SAs on the cell surface were decreased during diffrentiation, which was in accordance with the increased free SA in the medium and elevated activity of NEU1 sialidase. Meanwhile, the increase of SA expression during differentiation was evidenced by siaoglycoconjugates inside the cells and total SA in the cell lysate. Overall, the combined approach has bee successfully applied to profile SAs in the cell culture system. LC-MS/MS can accurately quantify SA in a high throughtput fashion. The SA linkages can be distinguished by flow cytometry and confocal microscopy with specific lectin labelings. The SA levels and linkages provide markers of cells at different status.

Abstract: Injuries to the craniofacial skeleton have a tremendous economical and social impact on our healthcare system and society. Presently, clinical management of craniofacial trauma remains highly challenging and various efforts have been undertaken to develop and improve existing therapies for craniofacial reconstruction. Among these efforts, mounting evidence has demonstrated that inflammation is among the first events to determine fracture healing outcome. Thus, understanding how inflammation affects bone healing and subsequently modulating inflammation to enhance bone regeneration has become a promising strategy. Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) is a member of TLR family that is central to inflammation by virtue of its involvement in host defense for microbial infection as well as tissue regeneration. As such, TLR4 is a potential candidate for investigation and subsequent immune modulation. This work utilized various knockout (KO) mouse models for TLR4 and its associated inflammatory mediators as tools to study the role of inflammation in calvarial bone healing in the absence or presence of bone grafts. In the absence of bone graft, a similar accelerated phenotype was observed between MyD88 KO mice and DC-TLR4 KO (TLR4 depleted in dendritic cells) mice, indicating that dendritic cell expression of TLR4-mediated MyD88 signaling was detrimental for calvarial bone healing. In addition, TLR4 depletion in myeloid cells also resulted in accelerated bone healing via enhanced osteoclastogenesis within a calvarial defect model. However, in the presence of bone graft, inhibited bone healing and decreased osteoclast-mediated graft remodeling was observed in TLR4 KO mice or when TLR4 signaling was locally inhibited, establishing an important and novel role of TLR4 in graft-based bone repair. Taken together, these data demonstrate that TLR4 signaling and its pathway mediators play an important regulatory role in osteoclastogenesis, highlighting a potential opportunity in which appropriate modulation of TLR4 signaling can be used to initiate early healing in bone defects or assist in bone graft-mediated therapy to improve clinical outcomes.

Cancer stem cells (CSCs), also known as tumor-propagating cells or tumor-initiating cells, are subpopulations of undifferentiated, highly tumorigenic cells found within bulk tumors. The rapid advances of cancer research and development of relative technologies have provided more and more evidence for the existence of CSCs, as well as the important roles they play in drug resistance and disease relapse of cancer. However, because of their quiescent nature and the similarities to normal stem cells, eradicating CSCs presents a challenging task. Chapter one provides an overview of cell surface markers of CSCs. Those markers are potential diagnostic macromolecules and targets for drug delivery.Parthenolide (PTL) is a sesquiterpene lactone natural product isolated from Mexican Indian medicinal herb Tanacetum parthenum (feverfew plant), a known medical herb utilized for centuries. PTL has been extensively studied as an anticancer agent, showing significant efficacy towards a wide spectrum of human cancer cells. In 2005, the identification of PTL as the first stand-alone and selective cytotoxic agent against the acute myeloid leukemia CSCs further heightened its therapeutic potential. However, the mechanism of action of PTL's CSC inhibitory activity is still an area of debate. Our efforts to elucidate the molecular targets of PTL is described in chapter two. The design and synthesis of two PTL affinity probes with diverse biological activity as well as their utilization in comparative and competitive protein pull-down experiments to enrich the cellular protein targets of PTL is presented. Although exhibiting promising anticancer and anti-CSC activities, the modest biological potency and poor water solubility prevent further development of PTL. Chapter three describes our efforts to synthesize PTL analogues, as well as our strategy to prepare water-soluble PTL prodrugs.

Minimally invasive technique (MIS) revolutionized the field of surgery for its shorter hospitalization time, lower complication rates, and ultimately reduced morbidity and mortality. However, one of the critical challenges that prevent it from reaching the full potentials is the restricted visualization from the traditional monocular camera systems at the presence of tissue deformations. This dissertation aims to design a new approach which can provide the surgeons with real time 3D visualization of complete organ deformations during the MIS operation. This new approach even allows the surgeon to see through the wall of an organ rather than just looking at its surface. The proposed design consists of two stages. The first training stage identified the deformation subspaces from a training data set in the transformed spherical harmonic domain, such that each surface can be sparsely represented in the structured dictionary with low dimensionality. This novel idea is based on our experimental discovery that the spherical harmonic coefficients of any organ surface lie in specific low dimensional subspaces. The second reconstruction stage reconstructs the complete deformations in realtime using surface samples obtained with an optical device from a limited field of view while applying the structured dictionary. The sparse surface representation algorithm is also applied to ultrasound image enhancement and efficient surgical simulation. The former is achieved by fusing ultrasound samples 5 with optical data under proper weighting strategies. The high speed of surgical simulation is obtained by decreasing the computational cost based on the high compactness of the surface representation algorithm. In order to verify the proposed approaches, we first use the computer models to demonstrate that the proposed approach matches the accuracy of complex mathematical modeling techniques. Then ex-vivo experiments are conducted on freshly excised porcine kidneys utilizing a 3D MRI machine, a 3D optical device and an ultrasound machine to further test the feasibility under practical settings.

Podocytes are highly differentiated glomerular epithelial cells that play an essential role in the establishment of the glomerular filtration barrier, a structural apparatus that selectively restricts the filtration of different macromolecules in the blood stream on the basis of their sizes, shape and charge. Podocyte dysfunction, one of the major causes of proteinuria, is of pathogenetic and prognostic significance in human glomerular disease. My study is focused on the investigation of novel pathways leading to podocyte dysfunction and proteinuria.In the first part, immunoblotting and quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) were used to demonstrate that LIM and senescent cell antigen-like domains 1 (PINCH1) is induced and undergoes nuclear translocation in podocytes after transforming growth factor, beta 1 (TGF-beta1) treatment. Bioinformatics analysis revealed the putative nuclear export signal/nuclear localization signal (NES/NLS) at the PINCH1 C-terminus which is required for its nuclear translocation. Immunoprecipitation and GST pull-down assay identified the interaction between PINCH1 and Wilms tumor 1 (WT1) which led to suppression of the WT1-mediated podocalyxin gene expression. In vivo, PINCH1 also underwent nuclear translocation and interacted with WT1 after TGF-beta1 stimulation. Our data identifies nuclear transcription factor WT1 as a novel binding partner for PINCH1, and provides novel insight into the mechanism of podocyte dysfunction under pathological conditions. In the second part, RT-PCR results revealed that treatment with TGF-beta1 induced gene expression of several wingless-type MMTV integration site family members (Wnts), predominantly Wnt1, and activated beta-catenin in mouse podocytes. Wnt antagonist Dickkopf-1 (DKK1) blocked TGF-beta1-induced beta-catenin activation and preserved nephrin expression. In vivo, ectopic expression of constitutively active TGF-beta1 induced Wnt1 expression, activated glomerular beta-catenin, upregulated its downstream target genes, and led to podocyte injury and proteinuria. Consistently, concomitant expression of DKK1 gene abolished beta-catenin activation in mouse glomeruli, inhibited TGF-beta1-triggered Wnt/beta-catenin target genes, and ameliorated proteinuria. These results establish a role for Wnt/beta-catenin signaling in the pathogenesis of podocyte injury and also suggest that this signaling pathway could be exploited as a therapeutic target for the treatment of proteinuric kidney diseases.

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) are a unique family of all carbon one dimensional nanomaterials that offer extraordinary mechanical, electrical and thermal properties leading to great promises in applications ranging from composite materials, nanoelectronics, electrochemical devices, biology to analytical science. This dissertation describes the synthesis and solution manipulation of single-walled carbon nanotubes and their applications in electrochemistry.Single-walled carbon nanotubes were synthesized by chemical vapor deposition method. SWNTs were individually and randomly grown on silicon substrates, which were used in study of the dielectric properties of SWNTs. As-produced SWNT bundles were individually dispersed in aqueous solution using designed “polysoap” surfactants. The polysoaps are synthesized by functionalizing the side chain of poly(styrene-alt-maleic acid) with aminopyrene. The designed polysoaps adsorb on the sidewalls of SWNTs and exhibit dispersion efficiency better than DNA. In addition, SWNT-metal nanoparticle (NP) assemblies were synthesized by using the polymer-SWNT complexes as templates for the binding of metal ions and metal NPs.Temperature and pH-responsive single-walled carbon nanotube dispersions were realized by using poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) and poly-L-lysine solutions as dispersion surfactants. The dispersion or aggregation of SWNTs in water can be controlled by adjust the temperature or pH values of the solution. Transparent and conducting SWNT thin film were prepared and used as electrochemical electrodes for bioactive redox enzymes or photosystem II (PSII) immobilization. The employment of SWNT thin films as electrodes alleviates the requirement for metal or glassy carbon supporting electrodes and direct electron transfer is observed on laccase-SWNT cathodes. The amperometric response to the visible light of PS II - SWNT film bioelectrode reveals the potential application in PS II based solar cells.Glucose oxidase (GOx) was immobilized on glassy carbon electrode using poly-L-lysine (PLL) and Nafion polymers. The Nafion-PLL-GOx modified electrodes display direct electron transfer (DET) without the aid of any nanomaterials. The GOx in modified electrodes retains its biocatalytic activity and oxidizes glucose efficiently.

More intense, more frequent, and longer heat-waves are expected in the future due to global warming, both of which could have dramatic ecological impacts. It is necessary to determine how elevated CO2 and N affect plant responses to heat stress because atmospheric CO2 and N deposition will increase in the future. In the first project, we found thermotolerance of Pn in elevated (vs. ambient) CO2 increased in C3, but decreased in C4 (especially) and CAM (high growth temperature only), species. In contrast, elevated CO2 decreased electron transport in 10-of-11 species. High CO2 decreased gst (stomatal conductance) in 5 of 9 species, but stomatal limitations to Pn increased during heat stress in only 2 cool-season C3 species. Thus, benefits of elevated CO2 to photosynthesis at normal temperatures may be partly offset by negative effects during stress, especially for C4 species, so effects of elevated CO2 on acute heat tolerance may contribute to future changes in plant productivity, distribution, and diversity. The second project showed that effects of elevated CO2 on plant tolerance to heat stress are also dependent on N availability. Negative effects of high CO2 were associated with decreased CE (carboxylation efficiency) and rubisco activase (except high-N barley) and HSPs (especially HSP70). My meta-analysis results showed that elevated CO2 affects plant physiology and growth to varying degrees under different temperature regimes. The field study examined the effects of N availability on plant response to heat-stress (HS) treatment in naturally-occurring vegetation. The results indicated that increasing nitrogen (N) availability will likely impact plant responses to heat stress, and thus carbon (C) sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems, which suggests that heat waves, though transient, could have significant effects on plants, communities, and ecosystem N cycling, and N can influence the effect of heat waves.