bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Problems and prospects of sperm cryopreservation in modern Russia
Authors:   RUDN University, Moscow, Russian Federation, Faniev M.V. , Prokopiev Ya.V. ,   Kazan State Medical Academy — Branch of the Russian Medical Academy of Continuous Professional Education, Kazan, Russian Federation, Kadyrov Z.A. ,   RUDN University, Moscow, Russian Federation, Faustova K.V. ,   Kazan State Medical Academy — Branch of the Russian Medical Academy of Continuous Professional Education, Kazan, Russian Federation, Cherepnev G.V. ,   Kazan State Medical Academy — Branch of the Russian Medical Academy of Continuous Professional Education, Kazan, Russian Federation, Mazitova M.I. ,   Kazan State Medical Academy — Branch of the Russian Medical Academy of Continuous Professional Education, Kazan, Russian Federation, Antropova E.Yu. ,   Kazan State Medical Academy — Branch of the Russian Medical Academy of Continuous Professional Education, Kazan, Russian Federation
Published: June 2024

Unfortunately, the demographic situation in modern Russia over the past 30 years leaves much to be desired and is one of the most discussed topics in the scientific community. According to current statistics, the male factor occupies up to 50% of the infertility structure today. And over the past 10 years, the number of diagnosed cases of male infertility has doubled. It is also worth mentioning the notorious events of recent years — the new coronavirus infection pandemic and a special military operation that are testing the demographic red lines to this day. From the viewpoint of medicine and demography, these events are associated with colossal reproductive losses and a decrease in already low birth rates for the state. One of the most relevant ways to raise the birth rate may be to expand the scope of assisted reproductive technologies (ART), including for male population. A promising ART procedure with a much more extensive list of indications for use than is commonly believed in our country is sperm cryopreservation, which has long ceased to be a "desperate method". This article presents possible indications for the use of sperm cryopreservation, as well as prospects and problems of introducing the method into the practice of healthcare in the Russian Federation. KEYWORDS: sperm cryopreservation, male infertility, cryotrauma, special military operation, ART. FOR CITATION: Faniev M.V., Prokopiev Ya.V., Kadyrov Z.A., Faustova K.V., Cherepnev G.V., Mazitova M.I., Antropova E.Yu. Problems and prospects of sperm cryopreservation in modern Russia. Russian Medical Inquiry. 2024;8(4):215–220 (in Russ.). DOI: 10.32364/2587-6821- 2024-8-4-5.
Dél-Ázsia és a nagyhatalmi versengés új korszaka
Authors: Háda Béla
Published: June 2024

A világrend napjainkban zajló átalakulása és az Egyesült Államok vezető pozícióját érő kihívások Dél-Ázsia államaira nézve sem maradnak következmények nélkül. Kína gyors felemelkedése, valamint Oroszország hatalmának gyengülése stratégiáinak átértékelésére készteti a térség országainak egy részét. Ezzel összefüggően India és Pakisztán jövőbeli szereplehetőségeit kíséri élénk figyelem a nemzetközi és biztonsági tanulmányok művelői részéről. E tanulmány azt vizsgálja, hogy a dél-ázsiai térség, és különösen annak két vezető hatalma milyen kihívásokkal szembesülhet a világrend poszthegemoniális fejlődési stádiumában. Ennek során röviden áttekinti India és Pakisztán poszthidegháborús korszakra jellemző stratégiai törekvéseit és a nagyhatalmakhoz fűződő viszonyát, majd részletesebb figyelmet szentel a dél-ázsiai stratégiai környezet elmúlt évtized során bekövetkezett változásainak, különös tekintettel a fokozódó amerikai–kínai rivalizálás erre gyakorolt hatásaira.
A Koreai-félsziget két állama és a nemzetközi környezet változásai
Authors: Csoma Mózes
Published: June 2024

A 21. század harmadik évtizedének kezdetén a hidegháborús időszak klasszikus frontvonalai jelentek meg ismét a kelet-ázsiai régióban, ami természetesen a Koreai-félsziget két államára is komoly hatást gyakorolt. A Koreai Köztársaság tekintetében egyértelműnek mondható, hogy a lakosság kiábrándult az Észak-Koreával megegyezést és együttműködést hirdető baloldali kurzusból, valamint külpolitikai és biztonságpolitikai tekintetben teljes mellszélességgel felsorakozott az Egyesült Államok és szövetségesei (Japán, NATO) mellett.
Energy Efficient and Adaptive Design for Wireless Power Transfer in Electric Vehicles
Authors: Kulat Hemat Sahebrao  , Dr. Vijaylaxmi Biradar
Published: June 2024

Wireless power transfer (WPT) has the potential to revolutionise global transportation and to catalyse the rise of the market for electric vehicles (EVs) by providing a compelling alternative to the conventional ways of charging that involve the use of cables. Nevertheless, coil misalignment, which is caused by the behaviours of drivers who park their vehicles, is a substantial challenge since it has a detrimental impact on power transfer efficiency (PTE). This work presents a unique coil design that is coupled with adaptive hardware in order to improve power transfer efficiency (PTE) in magnetic resonant coupling waste power transfer (WPT) systems and reduce the impacts of coil misalignment, which is a significant impediment that is preventing the broad implementation of WPT for electric vehicles (EVs). Simulation with ADS was used to validate the effectiveness of the new design, which exhibited a high degree of congruence with the theoretical analysis. In addition, receiver and transmitter circuitry that was specifically constructed for the purpose of simulating real-world vehicle and parking bay settings was utilised. This allowed for the collecting of PTE data in a controlled environment that was on a smaller scale. Experiments showed that there was a significant thirty percent improvement in the power transfer efficiency (PTE) at the centre of the coil array, and an astonishing ninety percent improvement was recorded when the array was misaligned by three quarters of its radius. When compared to single coil designs that serve as benchmarks, the suggested new coil array displays improved property transfer efficiency (PTE).
An experimental study of the production of biofuel from Lyngbyasp algae
Authors: Abbas Abbas Mohsin , Elkheralla Roaa Jafar , Abd Ali Abbas Talib , Jebur Assala Salam , Shwayel Iman H. , Jayp M. R.
Published: June 2024

Global energy consumption is steadily rising, and fossil fuels are nonrenewable energy sources which provide the majority of this energy. Researchers are seeking and supporting renewable energy sources in order to balance supply and increasing demand. Microalgae is seen as an emerging and dependable feedstock that has the potential to displace fossil fuel-based sources of renewable energy among other options.In the present investigation, none dible hazardous oils from lyngbya sp. algae have been selected for the use as a feedstock for the biofuel production.Themicroalgal isolateswere identified based on their surface morphology under microscope. The biofuel was produced by the transesterificationreaction.Using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis, the generated biofuel was characterized and the conversion was calculated.The findings imply that lyngbya sp. algal biomasses are y suitable for the generation of biofuel. More experimental investigations are required in this field.
KHẢO SÁT SỬ DỤNG THUỐC KHÁNG VIÊM NSAID TRONG ĐIỀU TRỊ BỆNH THOÁI HÓA KHỚP TẠI NHÀ THUỐC CỘNG ĐỒNG THEO PHƯƠNG PHÁP NGƯỜI BỆNH MÔ PHỎNG
Authors: Trần Thị Thu Hiền , Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Yến , Nguyễn Như Hồ
Published: June 2024

Đặt vấn đề: Người dược sĩ nhà thuốc có vai trò quan trọng trong đảm bảo sử dụng thuốc hiệu quả, an toàn trong điều trị các triệu chứng tại nhà thuốc.

Mục tiêu: Khảo sát việc thu thập thông tin của dược sĩ nhà thuốc (DSNT) cộng đồng để đưa ra quyết định phù hợp trong việc sử dụng thuốc kháng viêm không steroid (NSAID) điều trị triệu chứng thoái hoá khớp.

Đối tượng và phương pháp nghiên cứu: Nghiên cứu cắt ngang mô tả tại các nhà thuốc thuộc 8 quận ở TP. Hồ Chí Minh theo phương pháp người bệnh mô phỏng (NBMP). Tương tác giữa DSNT và NBMP được tiến hành theo kịch bản chuẩn hoá. Việc thu thập thông tin và tư vấn của DSNT được khảo sát và tính điểm theo bảng kiểm đã được thẩm định. Nếu tổng điểm ≥ 7/9, DSNT đã thu thập thông tin cần thiết và tư vấn đầy đủ cho việc sử dụng thuốc. Lựa chọn NSAID được xem là hợp lý khi phù hợp về chỉ định, liều dùng, không có chống chỉ định hoặc tương tác có ý nghĩa trên lâm sàng.

Kết quả: Có 400 DSNT tham gia, 68,2% thuộc nhà thuốc tư nhân. Phần lớn (96,2%) cấp phát ít nhất 1 loại NSAID cho NBMP, phổ biến là meloxicam (37%) và diclofenac (30%). Điểm thu thập thông tin có trung vị là 4 (IQR:3 - 5), với 2,3% DSNT đạt tổng điểm ≥ 7 và chỉ 6,5% trường hợp dùng NSAID hợp lý.

Kết luận: Việc thu thập thông tin của dược sĩ nhà thuốc vẫn chưa được đầy đủ dẫn đến quyết định lựa chọn NSAID có tỷ lệ phù hợp thấp.

Từ khóa: NSAID, thoái hóa khớp gối, người bệnh mô phỏng, nhà thuốc cộng đồng, dược sĩ nhà thuốc
Remote Physiological Signal Acquisition and Analysis: Contactless Photoplethysmography and Specular Reflection Vascular Imaging
Authors: Burton Timothy
Published: June 2024

In this thesis, I describe the remote acquisition of physiological signals using contactless remote photoplethysmography (rPPG), and the novel specular reflection vascular imaging (SRVI). rPPG is a contactless extension of reflection photoplethysmography, which captures the variations in skin optical properties due to changes in the primary light absorber in blood - hemoglobin. I used rPPG (embodied in a consumer smartphone) to investigate various physiological phenomena, including ischemia, Mayer waves, venous outflow, and characteristics of glabrous vs. non-glabrous skin. Despite its value, photoplethysmography is limited by sensitivity to melanin concentration, and therefore has performance limitations in acquisition from subjects with darker skin tones. To address this limitation, SRVI was proposed to leverage specular reflection for acquisition of skin displacements caused by mechanical pulsations in blood vessels. SRVI is insensitive to melanin concentration since acquisition is restricted to the very surface of the skin. SRVI was capable of capturing carotid artery and jugular vein waveforms.
Optimization of Neighborhood Form for Maximizing PV Production and Potential for Transformation Into a Net-Zero Energy Neighborhood
Authors: Li Yangchao
Published: June 2024

In the context of targets that we need to reach in order to curb the climate change, this research aims to understand if renewable energy has ability to meet the current energy demands. To determine this, a downtown area identified by the Toronto 2030 Platform was simulated by estimating rooftop PVs, considering six building typologies. The result from this simulation gave an overview of the energy generation potential in the City of Toronto. Four basic steps were followed to complete this study: first was to select six representative building-type communities; simulating those communities for their annual energy production; estimating annual energy production by PV modules within the selected area and, finally, suggesting strategies to achieve a Net-Zero energy neighborhoods. The methodology adopted for this study can be used as template for estimating PV modules energy production in other areas of the city.
Comparing apartment balcony options in Toronto for usability, healthy lighting, and daylight availability
Authors: Ouyang Fion Yang
Published: June 2024

This major research project (MRP) summarizes findings of a simulation-based study that explored the possibilities of balconies as functional spaces and examined the impacts of balcony designs on daylight and healthy daylighting. This study analyzed and compared open air and glass-enclosed inset balconies for two typical unit sizes in multi-unit  residential buildings (MURB) in Toronto, Canada. The simulation results were compared against the Daylight Credit in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standard and Feature 54 of the WELL Building Standard. Findings included recommendations for design options that enable balcony uses as dining, living and garden spaces, and relating to the impacts of balcony designs on building performance. Daylight availability and healthy lighting were evaluated both for the unit, and on the balcony. Future work should compare simulation findings to occupant satisfaction in field studies.
A Performance Evaluation of Seven Consumer-grade Indoor Air Quality Monitors in a Low-cost Laboratory Test Setting and in a Residential Environment
Authors: Zhen Cheng
Published: June 2024

There are a number of new low cost, air quality devices marketed to consumers that monitor realtime, indoor air pollutants. Questions remain about the accuracy, responsiveness, and smartphone visualization capabilities of these devices. This MRP identified and tested 14 devices (seven types, two ofeach product): AirBird, Airthings View Plus, Aranet4 Home, Awair Omni, Eve Home, Laser Egg + CO 2, and Purple Air PA-1. The study used three methods: 1. a low-cost laboratory setting to test accuracy for CO 2;2) Comparison to a calibrated, research grade meter (Lighthouse Handheld-3016-IAQ) for particulate matter PM2.5, temperature,and relative humidity; 3. Short-term field testing in a residential environment. The main results were that all devices were within acceptable ranges for temperature, relative humidity, and CO 2, with some variation in the response time and data visualization. Only Purple Air PA-1 had accurate correlations with the research grade monitor when testing PM 2.. Field study testing demonstrated each device's reaction time and data visualization. Future work could focus on how to interpret the results from the IAQ monitors in housing design and human activities.
Re-Drying Behavior of Plywood-based Single Surface Splines as a CLT In-plane Connector
Authors: Zhu Wanrong
Published: June 2024

Moisture management is essential for Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) structure, as repetitive wetting and re-drying cycles lead to moisture related issues of dimensional instability, distortion, and delamination of the CLT panels. In addition, concerns about indoor air quality may arise because of fungus growth when the structure is closed in at a continual wet condition. Special attention is given to single surface splines, one of the inplane connections for CLT floors that typically comprise a strip of plywood installed into the profiled edges of two CLT panels adjacent to each other. The industry has reported its tendency to absorb a much larger amount of water than the CLT panels they connect and can be more difficult to dry out when severely wetted. It is critical to study the re-drying potential of the single surface spline as one of the "hot spots" in terms of water uptake. The aim of this project is to develop an understanding of the re-drying potential of wetted plywood-based single surface spline connections under two case scenarios, i.e., with and without a water-resistive barrier (WRB) between the spline-to-CLT wood-to-wood connections. Through this experimental study, time-dependent curves to reflect the redrying rate of wetted plywood-based single surface spline were developed. The experimental results revealed that it took as little as eight (8) days for saturated plywood-based splines to dry below the recommended moisture content level if the proper air-dry solution was in place. At least a month is needed to facilitate such drying for single surface splines installed with and without a water-resistive barrier (WRB) between the spline-to-CLT wood-to-wood connections, which might cause conflict with the construction schedule. It was recommended for the construction team to come up with alternative solutions for issues with the wetted splines on-site, for instance, replacing the wetted plywood-based splines with the new/reused air-dried splines after overarching structural evaluation could be one of the solutions that would not become a burden to the construction cost and schedule. Solutions to facilitate air-drying of the single surface splines, as well as the CLT floors, should be explored in future research.
A Scalable and Microfluidic Approach to Water-in-water Microdroplet Generation With a Passive, Membrane-based Cross-flow System
Authors: Thompson Shyan
Published: June 2024

The generation of water-in-water droplets has recently received great attention for its applicability in biological applications over traditional oil-water droplet systems because of their high biocompatibility. An aqueous two-phase system (ATPS), aqueous mixture of polyethylene glycol (PEG) and dextran (DEX), has an ultra-low interfacial tension which makes monodispersed droplet formation challenging. Recent passive methods in microfluidics with flow-focusing configurations overcome this challenge, but they suffer either from polydispersity, narrow droplet size range, or low throughput. Successful droplet formation in such passive methods occurs in jetting flow regimes with low continuous phase flow rates, Qc<1ŒºLmin .Gravity-driven hydrostatic or highly precise pressure flow control has been used to apply constant, low flow rates that conventional syringe pumps struggle to emulate. Here, a new passive cross-flow configuration is introduced to generate monodispersed ATPS droplets. Our microfluidic device is membrane-integrated with constant flowrate syringe pumps. Additionally, the membrane with three uniform pores enables our device to operate as a parallel system capable of three controlled droplet formations simultaneously, with a wide range of monodispersed droplet diameters from ≈17 to 90 μm (coefficient of variation, CV ≤ 5%) and from ≈90 to 180 μm (CV ≤ 10%).
Flexible Solid-state Supercapacitors Using 2D White Graphene
Authors: Malekkhouyan Adel
Published: June 2024

Flexible electronics and current solutions for sustainable energy harvesting such as wind and solar must be amalgamated with an energy storage to store and deliver power properly. The emanation of multifunctional electronic devices with robust mechanical properties like flexibility and the ability to harvest and store energy from abundant sources needs to be designed to integrate with a unique configuration and be an anatomical component of the device at the same time. The central focus of this work is the fabrication of chargeable flexible solid-state energy storage units using functionalized 2D nanoflake hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). In the first part, synthesized h-BN nanoflakes are used to electrodes, fabricate separator, flexible electrodes, and gel polymer electrolyte. Then, all mentioned components were assembled into the flexible solid-state supercapacitor as a rechargeable energy storage unit. In the assembly method, a reverse evaporation method has been used to obtain the best performance.
Application of Hydrothermal Pretreatment for Improving the Fermentation and Anaerobic Digestion Processes for Resource Recovery from Municipal Solid Waste
Authors: Kakar Farokh Laqa
Published: June 2024

This thesis comprehensively investigated the hydrothermal pretreatment (HTP) parameters' impact on the sludge disintegration, volatile fatty acid (VFA), and methane production. It has also studied different process configurations and the development of a novel thermal-hydrolysis and vacuum fermentation for high-grade VFA recovery. Results confirmed the significant impact of HTP on all process parameters and a direct correlation between the retention time, sludge pH, and solid content with process parameters. The highest COD solubilization and solid destruction percentage were observed for the retention time of 30 minutes, pH 10, and solid content (SC) of 10%. It was found that fermentative bacteria prefer consuming sludge with lower solid content while methanogenesis produced higher methane consuming sludge with SC of 16%. The combination of thermal hydrolysis with chemical pretreatments also played a crucial role in resource recovery. Combining free nitrous acid and thermal hydrolysis demonstrated the highest methane production efficiency compared to the combination with typical acetic acid and sodium hydroxide. Moreover, the impact of HTP parameters on mesophilic and thermophilic fermentation was investigated and ultimately, 10-15% higher solubilization and VFA production occurred during thermophilic fermentation compared to mesophilic. Further, different process configurations of HTP with fermentation and anaerobic digestion were examined while hydrothermal pretreatment was found to have superior results for COD solubilization (25.5%), VFA production (65 g Acetate/L), and methane production (230 mL CH /g 4COD added) compared to the hydrothermal inter-treatment (HIT). Mathematical models developed by incorporating more than 100 sample points from studies mentioned above further defined the correlation of HTP and process response parameters. The best conditions of HTP from observations in the first phase were utilized to pretreat TWAS for the next phase. The pretreated TWAS and PS mixture was then used as the substrate of the novel integrated thermal hydrolysis and vacuum fermentation. Vacuum fermentation integrated with HTP demonstrated the highest (45%), VFA yield (0.32 g COD/g VSS added), and methane yield (267 mL CH4/g TCOD added) compared to the systems without pretreatment and vacuum. Microbial community analysis confirmed that HTP and vacuum application significantly impact the bacterial community's diversity. A bigger population of fermenters such as coprothermobacteraeota was observed in vacuum systems and for pretreated samples.
Thermal Stress Analysis of Reinforced Concrete Members in Cracked Sections
Authors: Shahbazian Bahar
Published: June 2024

Many reinforced concrete structures are commonly subjected to thermal effects due to various environmental conditions or service functions. Such thermal effects lead to the development of thermal stresses and, consequently, the formation and propagation of cracks in the concrete member. The cracks reduce the member stiffness and thereby alleviate thermal stresses. Most analyses of reinforced concrete structures subjected to thermal gradients employ the conventional linear-elastic uncracked method, which often overestimates the thermal bending moments. A nonlinear analytical approach is proposed to determine thermally induced moments in reinforced concrete structures subjected to simultaneous thermal and mechanical loading. The results obtained from this procedure are compared against those found by the elastic uncracked concrete method for structures such as beams, continuous bridges, and liquid containments. The non-linear cracked concrete method more accurately predicts the flexural response, while the results generated with the linear elastic uncracked method prove to be overly conservative and overestimated.
Three Dimensional Wind Speed Map for the City of Montreal: Application for UAV Aviation
Authors: Hamdy Mohamed
Published: June 2024

This thesis aims to increase the flight safety of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), by creating an application that can forecast wind speeds at any place within the City of Montreal. The first step was to undertakeaComputational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)study to examinetheimpact ofdifferent terrain and topographical influences on the wind field. Then, a CFD model was created to effectively simulate the urban and suburban zones of Montreal. The CFD data from the developed models were then compared to data from nearby metreological stations and the wind speeds and bearings were within 7% mean square error (RMSE). These chapters provide an overview of a technique for precisely measuring real-time, historical, and statistical wind velocities in the UAV flying environment. Finally, an application was developed to allow the public and drone industry to utilize the simulated data to increase flight efficiency and safety of UAVs.
Clustering and Characterization of Toronto Soils Using Pressuremeter Tests
Authors: Siscate Bohrer Lucas
Published: June 2024

This research aims to cluster and characterize Toronto soils based on pressuremeter tests (PMT) by applying machine learning algorithms. More than 400 PMT results were collected from a transit project in Toronto, Canada. Gaussian Mixture clustering was applied to cluster Toronto soils into four main groups with distinct mechanical behaviour: glacial tills I and II, cohesive, and cohesionless deposits. A material index based on the shape of the PMT curve was proposed to enhance the separation between cohesive and cohesionless soils, and PMT soil behaviour charts of material index (M IDvs. Menard modulus (E ) Mere proposed. The isocurves of the coefficient Œ± can be used to estimate soil's elastic moduli by correcting the pre-boring PMT disturbance. Predictive equations for EMandM weID proposed enabling the application of the PMT charts in practice. The application of French PMT charts was investigated, and comparisons between Toronto and UK tills were performed.
Experimental Assessment of Fatigue and Ultimate Strength of Stud Clusters in UHPC-filled Shear Buckets for Full-depth, Precast, Concrete Bridge Deck Panel- Steel Girder System
Authors: Gyawali Mohit
Published: June 2024

Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) is becoming an innovative construction solution to minimize construction cost and delivery time while increasing durability and improving safety. The common approach in ABC involves installing full-depth precast concrete deck panels on top of steel girders such that the shear pockets in the panels are aligned with a cluster of studs welded to the top flanges of the girders. This thesis presents a study on fatigue and static behavior of headed shear studs in composite girders where ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) was used as the connection grout in the shear pockets. The experimental program consisted of both static and fatigue testing on composite sections. The first phase of this research involved static and fatigue push-out tests on six specimens in which studs were grouped in different arrangements and spacings. The second phase of this research involved fatigue tests, followed by static tests to collapse on 5 composite beams. Three shear pocket spacings were considered in this study, namely: 600 mm, 1200 mm, and 1500 mm, along with a control cast-in-place specimen that was constructed using evenly distributed studs. Results were analyzed in comparison with the CSAS6:19 code provisions. Then, conclusions for the fatigue and ultimate strength of the clustered studs in UHPC-filled shear pockets were drawn.
Novel Solutions for Privacy, Security and Trust in Modern Medical Data Management Systems
Authors: Ghaffaripour Shadan
Published: June 2024

Data and analytics are indispensable parts of any successful business. Despite that, they can lead to serious privacy issues if not used safely. Even though the financial and legal consequences of privacy breaches are profound, the most damaging one, in the long run, is customer distrust. This is particularly the case for hypersensitive data such as personal health information. In recent years, the significance of privacy, security, and trust to the design of successful modern systems are being recognized more than ever before. Nevertheless, the current state of data management systems is far from achieving this goal. Particularly, in medical data management systems, handling sensitive data, mistrust is a barrier to many core processes such as data collection, sharing and analytics. Consequently, it is a primary cause of suboptimal medical services in our time. The primary direction of this thesis is to respond to these concerns of ethical nature by taking data privacy as a fundamental human right into serious consideration in the design of these processes. We highlight the emerging role of the blockchain in health information systems and recognize blockchain's ample opportunities for trust establishment. Consequently, we propose solutions based on this novel technology. More precisely, this thesis proposes a privacy-preserving data market for incentivedriven data collection for the development of reliable mathematical models that accelerate medical research. The blockchain aspect of the platform provides transparency as to the purpose for which the data is used to avoid the perception of data misuse/abuse. Secondly, this thesis proposes flexible blockchain-based access control mechanisms with multiple privacy protection layers for user-centric data sharing. Furthermore, it proposes a distributed machine learning-as-a-service platform for data analytics whose computational integrity can be verified efficiently by users. The strength of this platform lies in mutual privacy protection of user data and service provider intellectual property.
Engineering Stakeholders' Viewpoint-concerns for Architecting a Modern Enterprise
Authors: Sultan Mujahid
Published: June 2024

Stakeholders in an enterprise have diverse concerns from a variety of viewpoints. Designers of the enterprise and its systems elicit, analyze, and engineer stakeholders' viewpoint concerns. Most, if not all, of the stakeholders' concerns, are written in natural language. Ambiguity is omnipresent when it comes to describing viewpoint concerns in natural language. This ambiguity may lead to sub-par requirements for systems design and documenting enterprise blueprints. Many requirements elicitation methods and enterprise architecture frameworks emerged in past decades and gained popularity. None of these linked the viewpoint concerns to natural language lexical and semantic constructs. In this dissertation, we describe English language interrogative investigations and their semantic and lexical relationships to formulate better viewpoint concerns for stakeholders. We included two publications, primarily for waterfall software development lifecycles and monolith applications, one on requirements engineering and the other on enterprise architecture. In the past decade, widespread adoption of agile project management, independent delivery with microservices, and automated deployment with DevOps has tremendously sped up systems development. Microservices are provisioned and accessed via application programming interfaces (APIs). APIs carry business value
and have created an API economy for enterprises. The link between stakeholders’ concerns and microservices/APIs is not well captured nor adequately defined. We included a third publication in this dissertation that addresses these issues.Based on the publications included in the dissertation, we created a tool that uses a natural language generation system to auto formulate stakeholder viewpoint concerns for a system.
Towards the Automatic Discovery of Rules Based on ECG Data for the Support of Personalized Medical Decisions
Authors: Zouri Muthana
Published: June 2024

With the increasing amount of available medical data and particularity bio-signal data, there is a need to develop computerized techniques to support medical staff in providing effective and efficient treatment options. Personalized medical treatment requires the physician to provide treatment based on characteristics specific to the individual patient. This process is typically driven by subject matter expertise and established medical standards. The electrocardiogram is the most common non-invasive method for monitoring the health condition of the heart. In order to support the evidence-based decision-making process, available data can be examined to identify patterns that are relevant to the characteristics of the individual patient. For this process to be beneficial, the knowledge representation and discovery approach need to be easily understood and interpreted by humans as well as machine-readable. Also, the developed model must be flexible to accommodate the evolution of available medical data over time. In this dissertation, we proposed an approach for the development of a decision support system based on ontology and learning classifier systems. The use of ontology supports the integration of data from different sources and various formats, and it provides a mechanism for knowledge enrichment based on available medical standards and the addition of newly available data. Learner classifier systems can support the automatic discovery of rules that can be used to investigate the factors impacting the medical condition of the patient and conduct investigations in the form of what-if scenarios to identify the underlying conditions that are affecting the health of the heart. The approach we propose intends to allow physicians and researchers to use the inference between the attributes of the patient data to create custom what-if scenarios and determine otherwise hidden relationships between the data.
Action Schema Networks for Numerical Planning
Authors: Tariq Afifa
Published: June 2024

Planning is the fundamental ability of an intelligent agent to reason about what decisions it should make in a given environment to achieve a certain set of goals. Action Schema Networks (ASNet) find generalized policies for classical planning problems. In this thesis, we extend ASNet to work with numerical planning problems. We present the technique to propositionalize numerical variables to convert them from continuous infinite ranges to a finite domain. We use a non-generalized numerical planner, ENHSP, to teach ASNet to solve numerical planning problems by learning to mimic the actions chosen by this teacher planner for problem instances. We have optimized the training algorithm with action generation techniques, objective functions, and evaluation strategies. ASNet finds a generalized policy and weights after training which allows it to share these policy and weights to solve unseen problem instances of the same domain. We analyze our approach through an extensive experimental study aimed at evaluating the performance of ASNet on several numerical planning domains. The results show that our numerical ASNet can effectively handle many numerical planning domains and significantly outperforms the baseline planner in terms of execution time. This work is a first step to applying neural networks to numerical generalized planning.
Discovering Related Terms and Detecting Trends in Software Engineering Using Word Embeddings
Authors: Baskararajah Janusan
Published: June 2024

The Software Engineering (SE) community is prolific, making it challenging for experts to keep up with the flood of new papers and for neophytes to enter the field. One solution that has been proposed to ease the burden of entry on the community would be automatic summarization of papers. While there exist term and trend summarization and analysis tools, the unique language utilized in SE requires bespoke solutions. Therefore, we posit that the community may benefit from a tool extracting terms and their interrelations from the SE community's text corpus and showing terms' trends. In this paper, we build a prototyping tool using the word embedding technique. We train the embeddings on the SE Body of Knowledge handbook and 15,233 research papers' titles and abstracts. We create test cases necessary for validation of the training of the embeddings. Upon gathering the trends of interrelated SE terms, we also use cluster analysis to investigate the trends, to help discover underlying patterns in the way trends in SE rise and fall in popularity. We provide representative examples showing that the embeddings may aid in summarizing terms and uncovering trends in the knowledge base, as well as showing examples of patterns that may lie underneath trends in interrelated terms in software engineering.
Public-key Quantum Money: Cryptanalysis and the State of the Field
Authors: Bilyk Andriyan
Published: June 2024

The matter of keeping money, or any item warranting unique verifiable tokens, secure and uncounterfeitable has been one with a long history. Though this may seem less of an issue in
the modern day, counterfeiting persists as a real problem with traditional currency options, physical or otherwise. Starting in the 70’s and still developing, the idea has arisen to leverage
quantum mechanical properties—foremost of which, in this case, is the extreme difficulty of copying—to create currencies that are much more difficult to counterfeit. This thesis
considers the field that is quantum money, covering its origins and focusing on its public-key variant, exploring a key shortcoming of this technology—outside of physical limitations—
and contributing to the furthering of the field, through the introduction of a novel efficient attack on a previously secure quantum money scheme.
Multi-period Supply Contract With Temperature Dependent Demand and Price Uncertainty
Authors: Murugan Sreevidya
Published: June 2024

This project proposes a method to create a supply contract for a buyer and a seller located in different countries and has a demand dependent on the temperature. The aim of this project is to value contract that maximizes the revenue of the company. The supply contract mainly deals with the exchange rate values and the temperature-dependent demand as parameters. The meanreverting process is used to model the exchange rate values. The Hull-White tree model is used here to depict the exchange rate. A newsvendor type model obtains the ordering quantity in each period. A dynamic programming approach is used to determine the expected value of the contract. A numerical analysis is done to experiment with the method.
Human Performance Modelling and Mission Planning Optimisation incorporating Human Performance
Authors: Asadayoobi Negin
Published: June 2024

Factors related to workers and tasks have a combined effect on system performance. Management tends to make effective decisions by understanding the dynamics of the workers' performance over time, affected by their time-varying learning, fatigue, and stress levels. Such managerial decisions could improve system productivity and ensure workforce safety. Despite the importance of the problem, the literature did not focus on the performance modelling or task planning framework that includes all the mentioned factors, i.e., learning, fatigue, and stress. This dissertation includes three main contributions with different performance modelling and task allocation/scheduling planning that help managers plan mission operations, characterized as uncertain, dynamic, and time-sensitive. The first contribution (Chapter 3) is a mathematical model that modifies a popular learning curve model from the literature by making its learning exponent dependent on the fatigue level. The results of applying this model to a data set (vs. the other available ones in the literature,) showed an outperformance in terms of efficiency and balance criteria.
What Are the Drivers of Fatty Acid Production? Analysis of Phylogenetic Signals and Other Key Factors
Authors: Sbrizzi Serena
Published: June 2024

Essential fatty acids such as Omega-3s and Omega-6s are key nutrients in supporting individual and ecosystem health. Currently, many essential fatty acids for humans are derived from fish and shellfish; however, growing human populations and declining fish and shellfish populations threaten access to these fatty acids and thus nutritional food security. I predicted that bioprospecting (i.e., the search for chemicals in plants or animals) for essential fatty acids in plants can alleviate some harvesting pressure on aquatic ecosystems and provide new sources of plant-derived essential fatty acids. Understanding the distribution and patterns associated with fatty acid production in plants is the first step to achieving this. Using a meta-analytic approach allowed me to include a wide variety of taxa in the analysis. I used phylogenetic signal analysis to map fatty acid profiles, including both presence and abundance of particular and important groups of essential fatty acids, onto a plant phylogeny encompassing algae, bryophytes, ferns and their allies, gymnosperms, and angiosperms. Additionally, I explored how other factors including cultivation status, tissue, and climate were related to changes in fatty acid production to identify potential drivers of fatty acid production and provide guidance to bioprospecting endeavors. My phylogenetic signal analysis revealed that production of most key fatty acids was randomly or ubiquitously distributed, while the concentration of most key fatty acids (including eicosapentaenoic, docosahexaenoic, and nervonic acid) was significantly clustered in specific clades. Fatty acid content differed significantly between crops and non-crops, as well as among tissues of angiosperms, ferns, and bryophytes for some key fatty acids. Climate (via latitude and global climate deviations) also had significant effects on groups of fatty acids (saturated, unsaturated, mono-unsaturated, and poly-unsaturated fatty acids). In summary, I present new evidence for the roles of phylogeny, climate, cultivation status, and tissue source in the production of key fatty acids in plants using a meta-analytic and phylogenetic signal analysis approach, exploring the evolutionary and environmental contexts that facilitate the production of fatty acids in plants.
The Synthesis of Novel Triazole Based MRCK Inhibitors
Authors: Seaton Taj
Published: June 2024

Cancer is a leading cause of deaths worldwide, so new treatment pathways are vital. Targeted therapies are one of many treatments for the disease. They can target proteins that are implicated in cancer metastasis. Myotonic dystrophy kinase-related CDC42-binding kinases (MRCK) are important central regulators of the actin-myosin cytoskeleton that contributes to tumour cell invasiveness and is a powerful driver of metastasis. MRCK inhibitors have been hypothesized to limit the invasive character of different cancers. Considering that there are only a handful MRCK inhibitors in the literature, the synthesis of novel MRCK is crucial to understand the function of the kinase as well as develop new therapeutics. Currently, BDP9066, is the most potent and selective MRCK inhibitor to date. Given this lead, we hypothesized that derivatized triazoles inhibitors would be as potent as BDP9066 while allowing for a diverse range of new inhibitors to be synthesized. These new MRCK inhibitors were synthesized using simple yet versatile sets of synthetic methods, allowing or rapid diversification of azaindole scaffolds.
Can They Keep Up? Fecundity, Pollen Fitness, and Reproductive Success in Subdioecious, Sexually Labile Cannabis Sativa L
Authors: Wizenberg Sydney
Published: June 2024

Pollen grains are male gametophytes, haploid intergeneration organisms, that function as vectors for gamete dispersal. Pollen compete to fertilize ovules, potentially influencing differential reproductive success - a key condition for microevolution. Variation in the abundance and fertility of pollen produced by plants sets the stage for intense competition among pollen-derived sperm cells for the often limited supply of ovules. To explore this, I developed a methodological framework for collecting pollen, quantifying its abundance, and characterizing its relative fitness. I applied this framework to test if differences in the sex expression of Cannabis plants could influence estimates of relative reproductive performance. Broadly, unisexual male plants produced more pollen than cosexual plants, and plants with chemically induced cosexual phenotypes had lower rates of pollen viability than naturally occurring cosexual phenotypes. My collected work aimed to answer basic science questions about male reproductive performance and the adaptive value of unisexual phenotypes in subdioecious Cannabis sativa.
The Search for Non-equilibrium States in Chemical Reaction Networks
Authors: Persic Mark
Published: June 2024

One of history's biggest questions is how did life begin and what was the mechanism? Several recent approaches to the origin of life focus on the emergence of a non-equilibrium steady state. Here we investigate this problem by defining arbitrary chemical reaction networks and the chemical master equation that governs their evolution. The chemical master equation is specialized to a large volume limit to obtain the reaction rate equations. Data is taken from existing literature; corresponding reaction rate equations are then numerically solved. This is where the steady states are revealed - it is expected that after long times, there would be a stratification in the concentration time plots. Steady states for closed and driven (open) systems are examined. In the latter a transition from equilibrium to non-equilibrium is observed, in accordance with the flux of reaction, just like how living organisms may have emerged.
Monitoring Focused Ultrasound Thermal Therapy Using Synthetic Aperture Ultrasound Imaging With Decorrelated Compounding
Authors: Nguyen Michael
Published: June 2024

Decorrelated Compounding (DC) for synthetic aperture ultrasound reduces speckle in images, suggesting enhanced detectability of low-contrast thermal lesions produced by Focused Ultrasound (FUS). Ex vivo porcine tissue was imaged during FUS exposure to induce a lowcontrast thermal lesion and localized heating. Image quality was assessed using the Contrast-toNoise Ratio (CNR) and the speckle SNR (sSNR). DC imaging improves both the CNR and sSNR up to a factor of 9 in comparison to B-mode imaging. The feasibility of change in backscattered energy (CBE) thermometry with DC imaging was also investigated. Measured changes in signal and backscattered energy at the focal point yielded lower uncertainties and follow temperature profiles more closely when measured using DC imaging. These suggest that the DC method can measure subtle, temperature dependent tissue changes and can be used to monitor FUS thermal therapy.
Corroding Innocence: An Examination of Perceptions and Evaluations of Suspect Alibis Across the Investigative Timeline
Authors: O'Hagan Maire
Published: June 2024

Empirical studies have begun to assess the impact of contextual factors (e.g., evaluator role, crime type) on evaluations of alibi believability. Little is known about how such factors work together to impact alibi believability. The current study used a 2 (evaluator role: police investigator vs. juror) x 2 (alibi consistency: consistent vs. inconsistent) x 2 (crime seriousness: assault vs. murder) mixed factorial design. Mock investigators (n = 56) and mock jurors (n = 60) assessed fictitious case files that included alibi evidence. Results demonstrated that evaluator role did not significantly affect ratings of alibi strength or credibility, or suspect guilt. Consistent alibis elicited higher ratings of alibi strength and credibility, and lower ratings of guilt, compared to inconsistent alibis. Surprisingly, crime seriousness impacted ratings of suspect guilt such that assault cases enhanced ratings of guilt compared to murder cases. The implications for legal evaluator training and evidence dissemination are discussed.
Investigating Maternal Mental Health and Emotion Regulation Among Mothers With Problematic Substance Use Participating in Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up
Authors: Rodrigues Erica
Published: June 2024

Mothers with problematic substance use often experience complex mental health challenges. However, an examination of mental health is often limited to depression despite increased occurrence of trauma in this population. Study one described depressive symptoms, trauma, emotion regulation, and their interrelations in 12 mothers participating in a parenting intervention as part of their substance use treatment. Mothers presented with median depressive and PTSD symptom scores within the clinical range. A preference for soothing was greater among mothers with higher PTSD symptoms. Study two examined the relationship between mental health and parenting intervention engagement. Time between early intervention sessions was positively correlated with PTSD avoidance symptoms and enhancing positive affect and negatively related to social modeling. These findings underscore investigating mental health beyond depression and suggest that trauma and emotion regulation may be particularly important when considering the impact of mental health on parenting intervention engagement within substance use treatment.