Pancreatic beta cells are extremely vulnerable to destruction by Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS). In type 1 diabetes and islet transplantation ROS are thought to be involved in the loss of beta cells. To test the role of antioxidant in islet...
Parasites; Medical parasitology; Parasitic diseases
This thesis investigated infection dynamics of parasitic nematodes at both the population
and individual levels by exploring evolutionary and historical aspects of infection as well
as how host-parasite interactions influence virulence. In...
Parking garages--Automation; Parking garages--Design and construction
Automated vehicle storage/retrieval system (AVS/RS) technology is relatively new. It has been applied successfully in several European facilities in 1990s. AVS/RS is a flexible system that is a viable alternative to automated storage/retrieval...
Parkinson's disease--Treatment; Stem cells--Therapeutic use
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a hypokinetic movement disorder resulting from the
progressive neurodegeneration of the dopaminergic nigrostriatal system in the brain and
the resulting imbalance between dopamine and acetylcholine in the basal ganglia...
Parks, Suzan-Lori. In the blood; Parks, Suzan-Lori--Criticism and interpretation; African American women in literature; African American women--Social conditions
This research examined how the dramatic writing of Suzan-Lori Parks functioned as a
form of critical pedagogy which may serve to elevate the critical consciousness of
African American women. It sought to consider the implications of her dramatic...
Pattern perception--Data processing; Pattern recognition systems; Land mines--Detection; Data mining
For complex detection and classification problems, involving data with large intra-class variations and noisy inputs, no single source of information can provide a satisfactory solution. As a result, combination of multiple classifiers is playing...
Pattern recognition systems; Cluster analysis; Data mining
Despite the large number of existing clustering methods, clustering remains a challenging task especially when the structure of the data does not correspond to easily separable categories, and when clusters vary in size, density and shape. Existing...
Pattern recognition systems; Land mines--Detection; Pattern perception--Data processing; Data mining
Traditional machine learning and pattern recognition systems use a feature descriptor to describe the sensor data and a particular classifier (also called "expert" or "learner") to determine the true class of a given pattern....
The purpose of this dissertation is to suggest that peace is an idea that changes throughout the history of the west, rather than to show how nations may achieve peace or to define what it is. It begins as a concept the power brokers refer to or...
Pediatricians--Training of; Speech disorders in children
Children with general communication impairments as well as complex communication needs rely on pediatricians to prescribe the services of speech language pathologists. In light of this continuing and increasing need, it is important to ascertain...
This dissertation focuses on the mechanisms and implications of perceptual learning of binocular interactions. Perceptual learning is an important means of adapting to the changing environment, demonstrating the possibility of neural plasticity in...
Periodontitis is a chronic, destructive inflammatory disease of the supporting
tissues of the teeth with a high prevalence among adults. While the complete
pathogenesis of periodontitis remains unclear, it is initiated and sustained by...
Periodontitis; Iron--Health aspects; Iron in the body
The dental pathogen A. actinomycetemcomitans, a Gram- negative organism, has been associated with aggressive forms of periodontitis. A. actinomycetemcomitans requires iron to grow. In the host, iron-binding proteins such as transferrin,...
Phenomenology and art; Art--Philosophy; Philosophy of mind; Husserl, Edmund, 1859-1938; Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 1908-1961
This dissertation presents the philosophical concepts of Edmund Husserl on phenomenology and image-consciousness and explores the phenomenological project of Maurice Merleau-Ponty as I have sought to render them in my creative artwork. By building...
The objective of my dissertation research was to determine the role of chemical signals in conveying information regarding an individual's health status and suitability as a mate in humans and to examine the role that commensal microflora play in...
Hematite synthesized by low pressure oxygen plasma has been shown previously to exhibit promising characteristics as a photo-anode for a photoelectrochemical water splitting cell. It is cheap, stable and has a 2.1 eV bandgap and exhibits a...
Plague--History--Europe; Black Death--Social aspects--Europe; Erotica--Europe--History; Idols and images--Europe--History; Superstition--Europe--History
This thesis examines a large corpus of enigmatic pilgrimage badges dating from
roughly 1350-1500 CE. The badges were brought to light during archaeological
excavations of water sites throughout the Schelde Estuary in the Netherlands, the
riverbanks...
Preventive maintenance is a broad term that encompasses a set of activities aimed at improving the overall reliability and availability of a system. Preventive maintenance involves a basic trade-off between the costs of conducting...
We formulate an integro-difference model to predict the growth and spatial
spread of a perennial plant population with an age-structured seed bank. We allow
the seeds in the bank to be of any age, producing an infinite system of equations.
The...
This thesis will present various methods of trajectory generation for various types of mobile robots. Then it will progress to evaluating Robot Operating Systems (ROS’s) that can be used to control and simulate mobile robots, and it will explain...
