cometadata/datacite-rtg-text-other-reclassification-records huggingface dataset:
Impact of Baseline Insulin Regimen on Glycemic Response to a Group Medical Clinic Intervention
Creators: name: Jeffreys, A. S.
name: Melnyk, S. D.
name: Coffman, C. J.
name: Edelman, D.
name: Crowley, M. J.
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2013

description: OBJECTIVEGroup medical clinics (GMC) combine medication management and self-management training, and may improve diabetes outcomes. It remains unclear which patients benefit most from GMC. This secondary analysis examined the impact of baseline insulin regimen on GMC response.RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODSWe analyzed a trial of 239 veterans with type 2 diabetes randomized to GMC or usual care (UC). We categorized baseline insulin regimen as the following: no insulin; basal insulin only; or complex insulin (basal–prandial or mixed regimens). Using linear mixed models adjusted for clustering within GMC, we evaluated the differential impact of GMC relative to UC on hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) and self-efficacy among patients on different baseline insulin regimens.RESULTSFrom linear mixed models, the effect of GMC on HbA1c differed by baseline insulin regimen versus UC (P = 0.05); there was no differential effect on self-efficacy (P = 0.29). Among those using complex insulin regimens at baseline, GMC reduced HbA1c by study end compared with UC (−1.0%; 95% CI −1.8 to −0.2; P = 0.01). We found no such HbA1c difference between GMC and UC patients using no insulin (P = 0.65) or basal insulin only (P = 0.71). There were no clinically significant differences in hypoglycemia by baseline insulin regimen and intervention group.CONCLUSIONSWe found that compared with UC, GMC lowered HbA1c specifically among patients using complex insulin regimens at study baseline, which may relate to this group’s demanding medication and self-management requirements. Implementing GMC among patients using complex insulin regimens may maximize this care delivery strategy’s potential.
Insulin Regimens and Clinical Outcomes in a Type 1 Diabetes Cohort: The SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth study
Creators: name: Dolan, L.
name: Pihoker, C.
name: Anderson, A.
name: Reynolds, K.
name: Dabelea, D.
name: Imperatore, G.
name: Morgan, T.
name: Klingensmith, G. J.
name: Linder, B.
name: Marcovina, S.
name: Mayer-Davis, E.
name: Badaru, A.
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2013

description: OBJECTIVE To examine the patterns and associations of insulin regimens and change in regimens with clinical outcomes in a diverse population of children with recently diagnosed type 1 diabetes.
title: Light U(1)s in heterotic string models
Creators: name: Mehta, Viraf M
Publisher: name: University of Liverpool Repository
Year: 2014

description: We present the construction of heterotic string models built using the free fermionic formulation, and focus on how additional U(1)s may arise. We motivate an anomaly free combination, U(1)_\zeta, as a proton lifetime preserving symmetry external to a left--right symmetric gauge group. This same combination is found to nullify lepton number in U(1)_{B-L} to form a leptophobic combination, also in left--right symmetric models, which we compare to other leptophobic U(1) combinations constructed in the context of different gauge groups. We then accommodate U(1)_\zeta as a proton lifeguard symmetry in an effective field theory. We present a comparative study of how gauge coupling unification constraints may be satisfied when SO(10)xU(1)_\zeta\not\subset E_6 and when the U(1)_\zeta charges do have an E_6 embedding. We show that without such an embedding, current values of \sin^2\theta_W(M_Z) and \alpha_3(M_Z) rule these models out. We go on to discuss how viable string models with this property included may be constructed.
Cosmological Leverage from the Matter Power Spectrum in the Presence of Baryon and Nonlinear Effects
Creators: name: Bielefeld, Jannis
name: Huterer, Dragan
name: Linder, Eric V.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We investigate how the use of higher wavenumbers (smaller scales) in the galaxy clustering power spectrum influences cosmological constraints. We take into account uncertainties from nonlinear density fluctuations, (scale dependent) galaxy bias, and baryonic effects. Allowing for substantially model independent uncertainties through separate fit parameters in each wavenumber bin that also allow for the redshift evolution, we quantify strong gains in dark energy and neutrino mass leverage with increasing maximum wavenumber, despite marginalizing over numerous (up to 125) extra fit parameters. The leverage is due to not only an increased number of modes but, more significantly, breaking of degeneracies beyond the linear regime.
description: 10 pages, 6 figures
On separability problem for circulant S-rings
Creators: name: Evdokimov, Sergei
name: Ponomarenko, Ilya
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Group Theory (math.GR)
subject: Combinatorics (math.CO)
subject: FOS: Mathematics
subject: 05E30

description: A Schur ring (S-ring) over a group $G$ is called separable if every of its similaritities is induced by isomorphism. We establish a criterion for an S-ring to be separable in the case when the group $G$ is cyclic. Using this criterion, we prove that any S-ring over a cyclic $p$-group is separable and that the class of separable circulant S-rings is closed with respect to duality.
description: 16 pages
title: The impact of EU funding upon the management of archaeological monuments within England and the Republic of Ireland with specific reference to agri-environmental schemes
Creators: name: Bishop, Hilary
Publisher: name: University of Liverpool Repository
Year: 2010

description: Throughout Europe farming occupies a central role within the economy and is of vital importance both socially and environmentally. Whilst the primary output of agriculture consists of food products for consumption, it is increasingly recognised that agriculture is also intrinsically linked to the production of what are termed public goods which include the rural landscape, cultural features and heritage features. In order to accommodate such unprecedented change, the EU has introduced alternative support measures for farmers in the form of agri-environmental schemes. Archaeological sites and monuments help us to redefine and discover our heritage and enhance our sense of identity. They provide an important medium for understanding cultural heritage and are themselves a physical expression of that heritage (UCD 2006:7). The rural landscape has been shaped by farming throughout the centuries and, yet, it is this very activity that now threatens what remains of the archaeological heritage. Agriculture as both a system of land use and an economic activity is, according to Daugstad et al (2006), both a threat to, and a caretaker of, archaeological heritage. An overwhelming majority of archaeological features are situated upon farmland and it has long been acknowledged that the techniques employed in modern agriculture can damage such features. This research adopts a multi-disciplinary approach to ascertain the effectiveness of agri-environmental schemes in respect of the built heritage of two neighbouring EU countries; England and the Republic of Ireland. Agri-environmental schemes have been at the centre of government initiatives and policies aimed at safeguarding and enhancing important landscapes and habitats and have paid farmers to farm in more environmentally friendly ways. However, there has been a definite marginalisation of the built heritage within both national and EU environmental conservation policy. This imbalance has been carried through to agri-environmental policies and this research shows that schemes have not been sufficiently widespread or numerous to create anything other than a patchwork of potential preservation that has lacked the contiguity to benefit the historical landscape as a whole.
SELFIES and the future of molecular string representations
Creators: name: Krenn, Mario
name: Ai, Qianxiang
name: Barthel, Senja
name: Carson, Nessa
name: Frei, Angelo
name: Frey, Nathan C.
name: Friederich, Pascal
name: Gaudin, Théophile
name: Gayle, Alberto Alexander
name: Moosavi, Seyed Mohamad
Publisher: name: Freie Universität Berlin
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Artificial intelligence
subject: machine learning
subject: molecular string representations
subject: 000 Informatik, Informationswissenschaft, allgemeine Werke::000 Informatik, Wissen, Systeme::004 Datenverarbeitung; Informatik

description: Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are expanding in popularity for broad applications to challenging tasks in chemistry and materials science. Examples include the prediction of properties, the discovery of new reaction pathways, or the design of new molecules. The machine needs to read and write fluently in a chemical language for each of these tasks. Strings are a common tool to represent molecular graphs, and the most popular molecular string representation, Smiles, has powered cheminformatics since the late 1980s. However, in the context of AI and ML in chemistry, Smiles has several shortcomings—most pertinently, most combinations of symbols lead to invalid results with no valid chemical interpretation. To overcome this issue, a new language for molecules was introduced in 2020 that guarantees 100% robustness: SELF-referencing embedded string (Selfies). Selfies has since simplified and enabled numerous new applications in chemistry. In this perspective, we look to the future and discuss molecular string representations, along with their respective opportunities and challenges. We propose 16 concrete future projects for robust molecular representations. These involve the extension toward new chemical domains, exciting questions at the interface of AI and robust languages, and interpretability for both humans and machines. We hope that these proposals will inspire several follow-up works exploiting the full potential of molecular string representations for the future of AI in chemistry and materials science.
National Standards for Diabetes Self-Management Education and Support
Creators: name: Rothman, R.
name: Orzeck, E.
name: Cox, C. E.
name: Duker, P.
name: Hanson, L.
name: Maryniuk, M.
name: McLaughlin, S.
name: Kent, D.
name: Piette, J. D.
name: Sklaroff, S.
name: Youssef, G.
name: Tomky, D.
name: Kolb, L.
name: Beck, J.
name: Edwards, L.
name: Fisher, E. B.
name: Rhinehart, A. S.
name: Haas, L.
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2013

description: By the most recent estimates, 18.8 million people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with diabetes and an additional 7 million are believed to be living with undiagnosed diabetes. At the same time, 79 million people are estimated to have blood glucose levels in the range of prediabetes or categories of increased risk for diabetes. Thus, more than 100 million Americans are at risk for developing the devastating complications of diabetes (1). Diabetes self-management education (DSME) is a critical element of care for all people with diabetes and those at risk for developing the disease. It is necessary in order to prevent or delay the complications of diabetes (2–6) and has elements related to lifestyle changes that are also essential for individuals with prediabetes as part of efforts to prevent the disease (7,8). The National Standards for Diabetes Self-Management Education are designed to define quality DSME and support and to assist diabetes educators in providing evidence-based education and self-management support. The Standards are applicable to educators in solo practice as well as those in large multicenter programs—and everyone in between. There are many good models for the provision of diabetes education and support. The Standards do not endorse any one approach, but rather seek to delineate the commonalities among effective and excellent self-management education strategies. These are the standards used in the field for recognition and accreditation. They also serve as a guide for nonaccredited and nonrecognized providers and programs. Because of the dynamic nature of health care and diabetes-related research, the Standards are reviewed and revised approximately every 5 years by key stakeholders and experts within the diabetes education community. In the fall of 2011, a Task Force was jointly convened by the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE) and the American Diabetes Association …
title: The fiction and fictionalising of William Carleton
Creators: name: Turton, Jackie
Publisher: name: University of Liverpool Repository
Year: 2023

description: William Carleton, widely acknowledged to be the most important Irish writer of the nineteenth century, has, nevertheless, been subject to little rigorous examination. This neglect stems, firstly, from the notoriety he gained early in his career. An Ulster peasant by birth, and a convert to Protestantism in early adulthood, he commenced his career as a writer by attacking the Catholic Church into which he had been baptised. Consequently, despite his later skilful and sympathetic depictions of the Catholic peasant classes he knew so well, Irish attitudes towards him long remained ambivalent, and neither his work, nor his life, received the critical attention they deserved. Secondly, the fact that there is relatively little authoritative information on Carleton has further discouraged any proper investigation of what evidence is available, a fact which has reinforced a tendency for erroneous suppositions about Carleton to remain, not only uncorrected, but repeatedly cited as fact. This thesis, the aim of which is to present a corrective analysis of the author and his writings, is the first study to properly redress that failure. It pursues those lines of inquiry which, in the judgement of the writer, are most productive for the purpose of explicating the complexities of Carleton's work and character. The fundamental issues with which this thesis engages are ones of identity and identification; those imposed upon Carleton and those he sought for himself. The opening chapter gives a critical overview of the way in which scholars have presented Carleton, from the nineteenth century until the present day. A dearth of primary source material has made him an easy subject for appropriation; once vilified as an apostate, his more recent fate has been to be defined by the Famine. The second chapter examines how Carleton's personal identity was connected to the matter of his religious affiliation. The misinterpretation of circumstances connected to Carleton's shift of religious identity - an error corrected in this chapter of the study - provides the most obvious example of widespread critical neglect which he has suffered. Chapter three assesses the way in which Carleton's changing religious attitudes are reflected in his fictional writing. The final three chapters together constitute an examination of Carleton's literary identity. Chapter four proposes that Carleton can be understood as standing in the tradition of the senachie, as one who found his voice, and gained his reputation, by identifying with the peasant classes with which he was familiar. The penultimate chapter addresses Carleton's self-image as a young man, and the way in which both his empathy and identification with particular human types is expressed through his fiction. The final chapter examines Carleton's decline, as, confronted by the limits of his own imaginative capabilities, he wrestled with a form to which his talents were ill-adapted, and with subjects with which he could not properly identify.
title: The implications of early village architectures : the sensuous geographies and social experience of the Near Eastern PPNA and PPNB built environments
Creators: name: Hemsley, Samantha
Publisher: name: University of Liverpool Repository
Year: 2023

description: Between the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, settlements witnessed increasing longevity and there was a region wide shift from circular, purportedly single room to relatively large rectangular multi-room domestic structures. At the same time many non-domestic structures appeared. A number of regional vernacular traditions in domestic architecture have been identified, with rather differently structured uses of space. However it is the broad similarities in formal characteristics of domestic structures over the Near East that tends to be highlighted by researchers, especially those working on the Southern Levantine record that therefore forms the focus of this study.
Design, synthesis and characterisation of next-generation choline kinase inhibitors
Creators: name: Wang, Ning
Publisher: name: Imperial College London
Year: 2022

description: Abnormal lipid metabolism is a common feature of cancers. In the clinic, elevated phosphocholine, an essential membrane lipid precursor, is revealed as a phenotype associated with malignant lipid metabolism. Overexpression of choline kinase alpha isoform (CHKA), is recognised as a predominant factor responsible for the phenotype, and, therefore, CHKA has become a novel therapeutic target for cancer. In the previous work by Trousil et al., a potent CHKA inhibitor ICL-CCIC-0019 was reported, which displayed high cellular activity but undesirable pharmacological properties to be ameliorated. In this thesis, CK146, an active analogous scaffold of ICL-CCIC-0019, bearing a reactive piperazine handle, is presented. This novel scaffold opens the further possibilities for structural elaboration of the classic pharmacophore by innovatively exploiting two advanced drug development strategies. In the first strategy, selective CHKA inhibition was attempted to be achieved by prodrug CK145, via the incorporation of an ε-(Ac)Lys motif into CK146. In the second strategy, a peptide ligand targeting prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) receptor was embodied in CK146 to afford CK147, aimed to realise the targeted delivery to the malignant cells with high expression of PSMA receptors on cell surface. As expected, the precursor scaffold CK146 displayed high CHKA activity in kinase screening (CHKA activity as part of a 15 human lipid kinase screen: CK146: 69%, ICL-CCIC-0019: 53%) and good antiproliferative activity against four selected cancer cell lines (overall GI50 against HCT-116, A549, HepG2 and Caco-2: CK146: 2.5 ± 0.3 μM, ICL-CCIC-0019: 0.5 ± 0.02 μM). Proposed prodrug CHKA inhibitor (CK145) and PSMA-targeted CHKA inhibitor (CK147) were successfully synthesised. The pharmacological activity and pharmacokinetic profiles of the obtained compounds were evaluated in vitro. Although attempts to improve the pharmacological profiles of ICL-CCIC-0019 were not effective by these two modification strategies, important and informative structure-activity relationships were concluded and have been reported.
The spectral gap for transfer operators of torus extensions over expanding maps
Creators: name: Chen, Jianyu
name: Hu, Huyi
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Dynamical Systems (math.DS)
subject: FOS: Mathematics
subject: 37D20, 37C30, 81Q20

description: We study the spectral gap for transfer operators of the skew product $F: \mathbb{T}^d\times \mathbb{T}^\ell\to \mathbb{T}^d\times \mathbb{T}^\ell$ given by $F(x,y)=(Tx, y+τ(x) \pmod{ \mathbb{Z}^\ell})$, where $T: \mathbb{T}^d\to \mathbb{T}^d$ is a $C^\infty$ uniformly expanding endomorphism, and the fiber map $τ: \mathbb{T}^d\to \mathbb{R}^\ell$ is a $C^\infty$ map. We construct a Hilbert space $\mathcal{W}^{-s}$ for any $s<0$, which contains all the Hölder functions of Hölder exponents $|s|$ on $ \mathbb{T}^d\times \mathbb{T}^\ell$. Applying the method of semiclassical analysis, we obtain the dichotomy: either the transfer operator has a spectral gap on $\mathcal{W}^{-s}$, or $τ$ is an essential coboundary. In the former case, $F$ mixes exponentially fast for Hölder observables with Hölder exponents $|s|$; and in the latter case, either $F$ is not weak mixing and it is semiconjugate to a circle rotation, or $F$ is unstably mixing, i.e., it can be approximated by non-mixing skew products.
description: The second version has been seriously revised
DESIGN AND BEHAVIOR OF COMPOSITE COUPLING BEAM TO COMPOSITE PLATE SHEAR WALL CONNECTIONS
Creators: name: Ahmad, Mubashshir
Publisher: name: Purdue University Graduate School
Year: 2023
Subjects: classificationCode: 400510
subject: Structural engineering

description: Coupled Composite Plate Shear Walls / Concrete Filled (CC-PSW/CFs) are being employed as a seismic lateral force resisting system for the design and construction of mid- to high-rise buildings around the world. The coupled system consists of two or more Composite Plate Shear Walls – Concrete Filled (C-PSW/CFs) connected to each other using composite coupling beams located at the story heights. The CC-PSW/CF system can provide higher overturning moment capacity, lateral stiffness, and ductility than uncoupled walls. Concrete-filled steel box sections are typically used for the composite coupling beams, which are designed to be flexure critical members. When the CC-PSW/CF system is subjected to lateral seismic forces, plastic hinge formation and inelastic deformations (energy dissipation) occur near the ends of most of coupling beams along the structure's height, followed by flexural hinging of the C-PSW/CFs, typically at the base. This work presents the details and design of four composite coupling beam-to-C-PSW/CF connection configurations. Six connection specimens, representing the four connection configurations, with beam clear span-to-section depth, Lb/d, ratios of 3.5 and 5.1, were designed, fabricated, and tested. The experimental program focused on the force-displacement and moment-rotation responses, behavioral observations, limit states, and flexural capacities of the tested specimens. Major limit states and events included yielding of the steel plates comprising the coupling beam, followed by local inelastic buckling, fracture initiation in the base metal (near the weld toes) in the connection region, and fracture propagation through the beam flange and web plates leading to loss of flexural strength and failure. All specimens developed and exceeded the capacity and chord rotation requirements, in accordance with ANSI/AISC 341-22 guidelines. Detailed nonlinear 3D finite element models of the tested specimens were developed and verified using experimental results. The 3D finite element models accurately simulate the stiffness, flexural capacities, and monotonic responses of tested specimens. Nonlinear fiber-based models of the tested coupling beam-to-C-PSW/CF specimens were developed and verified using experimental results. The nonlinear fiber-based models can accurately simulate the stiffness, flexural capacities, and cyclic responses of tested specimens. The benchmarked fiber models were used to estimate the moment-rotation response of full-scale archetype connections.
title: Assessing the impact of ionising radiation in temperate coastal sand dune ecosystems: measurement and modelling
Creators: name: Wood, Michael David
Publisher: name: University of Liverpool Repository
Year: 2011

description: This thesis presents the results of a 6-year research project to investigate the radioecology of temperate coastal sand dunes. Samples (n = 617) of soil, water and biota were collected from the Drigg coastal sand dunes (West Cumbria, UK) between February 2005 and October 2007. Biota groups sampled included amphibians, birds, invertebrates, mammals, reptiles, plants (including lichens and mosses) and fungi. All samples were analysed for 40K, 137Cs and 241Am. A sub-set of samples (n = 26) was analysed for 90Sr, 99Tc, 238Pu and 239+240Pu. Additional soil analyses included soil moisture, bulk density, pH, organic matter content, carbonate content and cation concentrations (Ca2+, K+, Na+ & Mg2+). The application of three publicly-available environmental radiation protection models (ERICA, R&D128/Sp1a & RESRAD-BIOTA) to an assessment of ionising radiation impacts at the Drigg coastal sand dunes site was evaluated. Soil activity concentration data were used as input data and model results compared with measured activity concentrations in sand dune biota. Radionuclide concentration ratios (CRs) were identified as an important source of variation in model predictions. For sand dune small mammals, Am, Cs and Pu CRs were found to be 1 – 2 orders of magnitude lower than those for small mammals in other terrestrial ecosystems. For reptiles, the variability could be attributed to the paucity of data on transfer to this vertebrate group. Through literature review, mining of unpublished data sets and analysis of samples collected from the Drigg coastal sand dunes, CR databases were developed for reptiles (across a range of ecosystem types) and for sand dune biota. Analysis of sand dune soil data suggested that both sea-to-land transfer and the transport of sand grains in saltation influence the soil activity concentrations in coastal sand dunes. The low CRs for sand dune biota may be due to low bioavailability of particulate-bound radionuclides.
Topological Imbert-Fedorov shift in Weyl semimetals
Creators: name: Jiang, Qing-Dong
name: Jiang, Hua
name: Liu, Haiwen
name: Sun, Qing-Feng
name: Xie, X. C.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
subject: Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The Goos-Hänchen (GH) shift and the Imbert-Fedorov (IF) shift are optical phenomena which describe the longitudinal and transverse lateral shifts at the reflection interface, respectively. Here, we report the GH and IF shifts in Weyl semimetals (WSMs) - a promising material harboring low energy Weyl fermions, a massless fermionic cousin of photons. Our results show that GH shift in WSMs is valley-independent which is analogous to that discovered in a 2D relativistic material - graphene. However, the IF shift has never been explored in non-optical systems, and here we show that it is valley-dependent. Furthermore, we find that the IF shift actually originates from the topological effect of the system. Experimentally, the topological IF shift can be utilized to characterize the Weyl semimetals, design valleytronic devices of high efficiency, and measure the Berry curvature.
Kilonova Light Curves from the Disk Wind Outflows of Compact Object Mergers
Creators: name: Kasen, Daniel
name: Fernandez, Rodrigo
name: Metzger, Brian
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We study the radioactively-powered transients produced by accretion disk winds following a compact object merger. Starting with the outflows generated in two-dimensional hydrodynamical disk models, we use wavelength-dependent radiative transfer calculations to generate synthetic light curves and spectra. We show that the brightness and color of the resulting kilonova transients carry information about the merger physics. In the regions of the wind where neutrino irradiation raises the electron fraction to Ye > 0.25, r-process nucleosynthesis halts before producing high-opacity, complex ions (the lanthanides). The kilonova light curves thus show two distinct components: a brief (~2 day) blue optical transient produced in the outer lanthanide-free ejecta, and a longer (~10 day) infrared transient produced in the inner, lanthanide line-blanketed region. Mergers producing a longer-lived neutron star, or a more rapidly spinning black hole, have stronger neutrino irradiation, generate more lanthanide-free ejecta, and are optically brighter and bluer. At least some optical emission is produced in all disk wind models, which should enhance the detectability of electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational wave sources. However, the presence of even a small amount (10^{-4} Msun) of overlying, neutron-rich dynamical ejecta will act as a "lanthanide-curtain", obscuring the optical wind emission from certain viewing angles. Because the disk outflows have moderate velocities (~10,000 km/s), numerous resolved line features are discernible in the spectra, distinguishing disk winds from fast-moving dynamical ejecta, and offering a potential diagnostic of the detailed composition of freshly produced r-process material.
description: submitted to MNRAS
title: Pedestrian real-time location and routing information delivered to mobile digital architectural guides
Creators: name: Saeed, Ghousia
Publisher: name: University of Liverpool Repository
Year: 2023

description: The work described in this thesis deals with two particular issues relating to the effective delivery of Architectural information that includes textual, 2D graphics and 3D graphic information to small mobile digital devices on location. These issues were investigated, and a solution was suggested in this thesis as part of an ongoing research project, 'City in the Palm of your Hand', that is being applied in the city of Liverpool, UK. The outcomes have broader implications for other applications of the theories and technologies related to pedestrian guides.
title: Molecular biomarkers and regulators of susceptibility to drug induced kidney injury
Creators: name: Sharkey, Jack
Publisher: name: University of Liverpool Repository
Year: 2015

description: Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are undesirable effects of any therapeutic compound beyond its desired pharmacological effect. They are not only a serious issue for the sufferer but also bear a large societal cost and are one of the main reasons for the withdrawal of drugs from the market. Nephrotoxicity is the toxic affect of any exogenous compound on the kidney. The kidney is particularly susceptible to adverse effects of drugs due to its adaptations which allow it to carry out its physiological role efficiently. The kidney receives approximately 25 % of the cardiac output so is exposed to any blood borne toxin at high levels. The kidney also concentrates the filtrate as it passes through the nephron which exposes the epithelial cells of the nephron to much greater concentrations of any toxin present. The fact that the cells of the nephron are metabolically active and have active transport mechanisms also contribute towards the susceptibility of the kidney to ADRs. Adverse events which affect the kidney are often initially very subtle but can rapidly progress into more serious events if not detected early. A biomarker is any quantifiable change in an endogenous protein or molecule which can be indicative of a disease process or state. Current gold standard biomarkers of kidney injury include Serum Creatinine and blood urea nitrogen. Both of these are suboptimal biomarkers of kidney injury in terms of sensitivity and specificity so there is a real need for the development of more specific, translational biomarkers of kidney injury. Ideally these next generation biomarkers would also provide information on the location of the injury or the extent of the injury. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short ribonucleic acid sequences which are the smallest functional non-coding RNA units in plants and animals. Recent research has implicated miRNAs in many disease states, particularly cancers where many miRNA species have been shown to be aberrantly expressed. MiRNAs have also been shown to have potential as biomarkers of drug induced liver injury (DILI). This thesis focuses on the potential of miRNAs to serve as translational biomarkers of kidney injury. Techniques used to isolate, purify and quantify miRNA species were validated to determine the suitability of them for routine quantification in any laboratory. The qPCR technique was shown to be highly precise and sensitive for miRNA quantification. Intra-assay and inter-assay variation was low (
title: Intelligent information retrieval and fault diagnosis for the asset management of power substations
Creators: name: Yang, Zhen
Publisher: name: University of Liverpool Repository
Year: 2023

description: This thesis mainly presents two intelligent approaches to the Asset Management (AM) of power substations, which include an Evidential Reasoning (ER)-based document ranking approach to an Ontology-based Document Search Engine (ODSE) for the Information Retrieval (IR) of power substations and an Association Rule Mining (ARM)-based Dissolved Gas Analysis (DGA) approach to the Fault Diagnosis (FD) of power transformers.
Novel Risk Factors and the Prediction of Type 2 Diabetes in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study
Creators: name: Young, J. H.
name: Duncan, B. B.
name: Raynor, L. A.
name: Schmidt, M. I.
name: Ballantyne, C. M.
name: Hoogeveen, R. C.
name: Pankow, J. S.
name: Pereira, M. A.
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2013

description: OBJECTIVEThe objective of this study was to determine potential added value of novel risk factors in predicting the development of type 2 diabetes beyond that provided by standard clinical risk factors.RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODSThe Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study is a population-based prospective cohort study in four U.S. communities. Novel risk factors were either measured in the full cohort or in a case-control sample nested within the cohort. We started with a basic prediction model, previously validated in ARIC, and evaluated 35 novel risk factors by adding them independently to the basic model. The area under the curve (AUC), net reclassification index (NRI), and integrated discrimination index (IDI) were calculated to determine if each of the novel risk factors improved risk prediction.RESULTSThere were 1,457 incident cases of diabetes with a mean of >7.6 years of follow-up among 12,277 participants at risk. None of the novel risk factors significantly improved the AUC. Forced expiratory volume in 1 s was the only novel risk factor that resulted in a significant NRI (0.54%; 95% CI: 0.33–0.86%). Adiponectin, leptin, γ-glutamyl transferase, ferritin, intercellular adhesion molecule 1, complement C3, white blood cell count, albumin, activated partial thromboplastin time, factor VIII, magnesium, hip circumference, heart rate, and a genetic risk score each significantly improved the IDI, but net changes were small.CONCLUSIONSEvaluation of a large panel of novel risk factors for type 2 diabetes indicated only small improvements in risk prediction, which are unlikely to meaningfully alter clinical risk reclassification or discrimination strategies.
A classification of irreducible admissible mod p representations of p-adic reductive groups
Creators: name: Abe, Noriyuki
name: Henniart, Guy
name: Herzig, Florian
name: Vigneras, Marie-France
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Number Theory (math.NT)
subject: Representation Theory (math.RT)
subject: FOS: Mathematics
subject: 22E50

description: Let F be a locally compact non-archimedean field, p its residue characteristic, and G a connected reductive group over F. Let C an algebraically closed field of characteristic p. We give a complete classification of irreducible admissible C-representations of G = G(F), in terms of supercuspidal C-representations of the Levi subgroups of G, and parabolic induction. Thus we push to their natural conclusion the ideas of the third-named author, who treated the case G = GL_m, as further expanded by the first-named author, who treated split groups G. As in the split case, we first get a classification in terms of supersingular representations of Levi subgroups, and as a consequence show that supersingularity is the same as supercuspidality.
description: 64 pages
title: Hyperset approach to semi-structured databases and the experimental implementation of the query language Delta
Creators: name: Molyneux, Richard
Publisher: name: University of Liverpool Repository
Year: 2010

description: This thesis presents practical suggestions towards the implementation of the hyperset approach to semi-structured databases and the associated query language Delta. This work can be characterised as part of a top-down approach to semi-structured databases, from theory to practice. The main original part of this work consisted in implementation of the hyperset Delta query language to semi-structured databases, including worked example queries. In fact, the goal was to demonstrate the practical details of this approach and language. The required development of an extended, practical version of the language based on the existing theoretical version, and the corresponding operational semantics. Here we present detailed description of the most essential steps of the implementation. Another crucial problem for this approach was to demonstrate how to deal in reality with the concept of the equality relation between (hyper)sets, which is computationally realised by the bisimulation relation. In fact, this expensive procedure, especially in the case of distributed semi-structured data, required some additional theoretical considerations and practical suggestions for efficient implementation. To this end the 'local/global' strategy for computing the bisimulation relation over distributed semi-structured data was developed and its efficiency was experimentally confirmed. Finally, the XML-WDB format for representing any distributed WDB as system of set equations was developed so that arbitrary XML elements can participate and, hence, queried by the -language. The query system with the syntax of the language and several example queries from this thesis is available online at http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/˜molyneux/t/
title: Dissecting the role and regulation of MRL function in Drosophila
Creators: name: Lofthouse, Christopher
Publisher: name: University of Liverpool Repository
Year: 2014

description: The Mig10/RIAM/Lpd (MRL) family of adapter proteins have been recognised in transducing signals derived from growth factor receptors to alterations in cell motility and adhesion via changes in actin dynamics. Reduction in the levels of MRL proteins results in diminished cell division rates, growth retardation, an increase in monomeric (G): filamentous (F) actin ratios, loss of cell migration, and lethality. Conversely, overexpression of MRL proteins reduces the ratio of G:F actin, thereby promoting Serum Response Factor (SRF) signalling, lamellipodia formation, cellular invasion and coordinated cell growth and proliferation. Members of the MRL family all share common structural characteristics, most notably the presence of highly conserved central Ras-association (RA) and Pleckstrin homology (PH) domains in addition to an N-terminal Talin binding site and multiple C-terminal SH3 and proline rich motifs capable of interacting with Ena/VASP and Profilin. This report extends previous work carried out on Pico, the Drosophila MRL homologue, by demonstrating physical interactions with Chickadee (Profilin), Rhea (Talin), Ras, and Protein Phosphatase 1 (PP1). Many of these binding partners were found to co-localise with Pico within highly dynamic membrane ruffles during Drosophila cell spreading, while only Enabled (Ena/VASP) co-localised at the periphery of cells once they had reached a maximal size and spreading had ceased, pointing to the existence of distinct Pico-associated complexes. This work also details the presence of a highly conserved MAPK-binding site adjacent to the RA domain which had not been previously recorded in the literature. Site-directed mutagenesis revealed this MAPK-binding motif to be required for Pico's interactions with the Erk1/2 homologue Rolled, while conservation of MAPK binding ability was demonstrated in both human Lpd and RIAM orthologues. Further analysis showed that Rolled might phosphorylate Pico at a serine residue (Ser 819) previously identified by high-throughput phosphoproteomics, which may in turn promote Pico's interactions with PP1. Wing growth assays performed using site-directed Pico mutants indicated that PP1 plays a role in negative regulation of Pico-mediated growth, although the relevant targets of the phosphatase remain to be identified. Interestingly, reporter gene experiments confirmed that Pico induced SRF-dependent gene expression in ii Drosophila cells while ectopic SRF signalling has been found to increase expression of rolled, suggesting the potential existence of a Rolled/PP1 mediated negative feedback loop regulating Pico functionality.
title: Molecular, biochemical and pharmacological characterisation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis cytochrome bd-I oxidase: a putative therapeutic target
Creators: name: Hafiz, Taghreed
Publisher: name: University of Liverpool Repository
Year: 2014

description: Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the most devastating diseases in humans. Nowadays, tuberculosis therapy is not sufficient to control the TB epidemic and only lasts for 6 months to cure patients and prevent relapse; therefore, the treatment of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is particularly challenging (1). New antibiotics, mainly those that are derived from new chemical classes, are more likely to be more effective against resistant strains. Moreover, expanding the knowledge of the mode of action of drugs has important implications in tackling TB. Only empirical approaches can be adopted in the journey of discovering new anti-tubercular drugs until a clear picture of latency and persister cells’ physiology is achieved. Mtb has the extraordinary ability to survive under hypoxia, suggesting a high degree of metabolic plasticity. The flexibility conferred by a modular respiratory system is critical to the survival of Mtb, thereby also making it a promising area of research for new drug targets. This thesis aimed towards the characterisation of cytochrome bd-I quinol oxidase (bd-I), a respiratory component that is believed to operate during both the replicative and “dormant” Mtb phenotypes. The essential nature of Mtb bd-I, which has no human homologue, has been confirmed in a recent deep sequencing study of genes required for Mtb growth by Griffin et al. (2), further confirming its potential as a novel target. Recombinant Mtb bd-I was successfully expressed under the control of the pUC19 lac promoter in the Escherichia coli ML16 bo3/bd-I and MB44 bo3/bd-I/bd-II knockout strains, allowing “noise-free” measurement of the enzyme. Initial steady-state kinetics of the enzyme was presented using a range of quinol substrates, revealing a substrate preference for dQH2 over Q1H2 and Q2H2. A number of bd-I inhibitors were identified and their pharmacodynamic profiles against Mtb H37Rv were determined. In addition, a pharmaco-metabolomics platform was initiated to explore the cellular response of Mtb to current first-line TB drugs as well as in house bd-I and type II NADH inhibitors. The initial findings are discussed in the context of the known mode of action of the drugs and future research needs in drug discovery of this devastating disease.
title: Aesthetics and ethics at the intersection: Contemporary reflections on the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer
Creators: name: O'Brien, Marianne
Publisher: name: University of Liverpool Repository
Year: 2023

description: In the last hundred years of commentarial literature on Schopenhauer, the breadth and profundity of the relationships that exist between aesthetics and ethics in his philosophy have been overlooked and overshadowed by studies of Schopenhauer as a metaphysician. This exploration of the status of the metaphysical connection between aesthetics and ethics in his philosophy. In order to establish the significance of this connection for contemporary debates on aesthetics and ethics, I elucidate Schopenhauer's philosophy in a manner that addresses its inconsistencies and inadequacies whilst being conducive to the clear articulation and development of its key themes and central insights.
title: On the theory of truthful and fair pricing for banner advertisements
Creators: name: Zhang, Jinshan
name: Zhang, Jinshan
Publisher: name: University of Liverpool Repository
Year: 2014

description: We consider revenue maximization problem in banner advertisements under two fundamental concepts: Envy-freeness and truthfulness. Envy-freeness captures fairness requirement among buyers while truthfulness gives buyers the incentive to announce truthful private bids. A extension of envy-freeness named competitive equilibrium, which requires both envy-freeness and market clearance conditions, is also investigated. For truthfulness also called incentive compatible, we adapt Bayesian settings, where each buyer's private value is drawn independently from publicly known distributions. Therefore, the truthfulness we adopt is Bayesian incentive compatible mechanisms. Most of our results are positive. We study various settings of revenue maximizing problem e.g. competitive equilibrium and envy-free solution in relaxed demand, sharp demand and consecutive demand case; Bayesian incentive compatible mechanism in relaxed demand, sharp demand, budget constraints and consecutive demand cases. Our approach allows us to argue that these simple mechanisms give optimal or approximate-optimal revenue guarantee in a very robust manner.
Classical and quantum theories of proton disorder in hexagonal water ice
Creators: name: Benton, Owen
name: Sikora, Olga
name: Shannon, Nic
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: It has been known since the pioneering work of Bernal, Fowler and Pauling that common, hexagonal (Ih) water ice is the archetype of a frustrated material : a proton-bonded network in which protons satisfy strong local constraints - the "ice rules" - but do not order. While this proton disorder is well established, there is now a growing body of evidence that quantum effects may also have a role to play in the physics of ice at low temperatures. In this Article we use a combination of numerical and analytic techniques to explore the nature of proton correlations in both classical and quantum models of ice Ih. In the case of classical ice Ih, we find that the ice rules have two, distinct, consequences for scattering experiments - singular "pinch points", reflecting a zero-divergence condition on the uniform polarization of the crystal, and broad, asymmetric features, coming from its staggered polarisation. In the case of the quantum model, we find that the collective quantum tunnelling of groups of protons can convert states obeying the ice rules into a quantum liquid, whose excitations are birefringent, emergent photons. We make explicit predictions for scattering experiments on both classical and quantum ice Ih, and show how the quantum theory can explain the "wings" of incoherent inelastic scattering observed in recent neutron scattering experiments [Bove et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 165901 (2009)]. These results raise the intriguing possibility that the protons in ice Ih could form a quantum liquid at low temperatures, in which protons are not merely disordered, but continually fluctuate between different configurations obeying the ice rules.
description: 33 pages (21 in main text), 13 figures (9 in main text), expanded discussion of experiment with new subsection on thermodynamics