cometadata/datacite-rtg-text-other-reclassification-records huggingface dataset:
title: Building Global Communal Resilience: Coping in the Lebanese Context
Creators: name: Zabian, Samira
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: resilience
subject: communal resilience
subject: global resilience
subject: global communal resilience
subject: Lebanese diaspora
subject: Lebanese Canadians
subject: Counselling Psychology
subject: Educational Psychology
subject: Education--Guidance and Counseling
subject: Education--Social Sciences

description: Western psychological literature often emphasizes individual agency and capability in adapting to life's challenges. While some research is beginning to conceptualize resilience as a holistic system process, the focus remains primarily on individual psychological mechanisms. Challenging this perspective necessitates empirical evidence from diverse cultural contexts to identify the embedded social and cultural processes which are beyond individual levels of support. This constructivist grounded theory study draws on in-depth interviews with 10 Lebanese Canadians to explore their experiences during major sociopolitical challenges in Lebanon. These challenges are primarily related to three recent crises: the COVID-19 pandemic, the socioeconomic crisis, and the Beirut port explosion. Findings from the study illuminate key cultural conditions and social processes that foster communal resilience on a global scale. Overall, findings point away from adopting a Procrustean view of resilience, and adopting a view which accounts for multiple contexts and factors that influence the resilience process. In the absence of systemic support, participants engaged in communal coping through the formation of global villages, to ensure survival. Participants described collective responsibilities towards their global villages and the mobilization of support. The findings contrast with Western psychological theories that narrowly focus on the individual and lack consideration for broader communal obligations. This study acknowledges the paradoxical nature of this form of resilience, resulting in an overreliance on the global villages and a lack of thriving. Based on a compelling case and rich data, the study offers insights into the complex psychological, cultural, and social processes that underpin a framework prioritizing communal well-being as a key resilience indicator. In doing so, it encourages mental health professionals to explore and foster resilience as a collective endeavor.
The hard X-ray emission of X Per
Creators: name: Doroshenko, V.
name: Santangelo, A.
name: Kreykenbohm, I.
name: Doroshenko, R.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We present an analysis of the spectral properties of the peculiar X-ray pulsar X Per based on INTEGRAL observations. We show that the source exhibits an unusually hard spectrum and is confidently detected by ISGRI up to more than 100 keV. We find that two distinct components may be identified in the broadband 4-200 keV spectrum of the source. We interpret these components as the result of thermal and bulk Comptonization in the vicinity of the neutron star and describe them with several semi-phenomenological models. The previously reported absorption feature at ~30 keV is not required in the proposed scenario and therefore its physical interpretation must be taken with caution. We also investigated the timing properties of the source in the framework of existing torque theory, concluding that the observed phenomenology can be consistently explained if the magnetic field of the neutron star is ~10^14 G.
description: Published as a letter in A&A; 4 pages, 2 figures
Integrated information in the EEG of preterm infants increases with family nurture intervention, age, and conscious state
Creators: name: Isler, Joseph R.
name: Stark, Raymond I.
name: Grieve, Philip G.
name: Welch, Martha G.
name: Myers, Michael M.
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2018
Subjects: Electroencephalography
Consciousness
Infants
Brain
Child development
Pediatrics

description: A putative quantifier of consciousness, integrated information, was applied to preterm infant EEG data after novel pre-processing. Integrated information had a non-random structure as a function of the time lag over which it was computed. For most lags, it increased with age in early life, but even more so in infants exposed to Family Nurture Intervention (FNI), providing further evidence that FNI advances brain maturation in preterm infants. Also, it discriminated between conscious states (awake, REM sleep, NREM sleep), providing empirical support for the Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness in human infants.
title: Novel Spatio-Temporal Models with Applications in Wind Forecasting
Creators: name: Jia, Tianxia
Publisher: name: Science
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Wind forecasting
subject: Spatio-temporal process
subject: Covariance model
subject: Markov chain Gaussian field
subject: Statistics
subject: FOS: Mathematics

description: This research asserts the benefits of incorporating atmospheric regimes from large-scale reanalysis datasets and accounting for regime- and region-specific prevailing winds in covariance models for accurate short-term wind forecasts at multiple weather stations. Extending from classic time series models, regime-switching autoregressive and vector autoregressive models, alongside their mixture counterparts, are utilized first to model short-term wind speed to 6 hours ahead at 23 weather stations across Alberta. The results underscore the advantages of simultaneous modelling of multiple locations and the integration of atmospheric information for short-term wind forecasting. Expanding our scope, we employ spatio-temporal covariance models to model wind speed at 131 weather stations in Alberta. Specifically, the Gneiting class is adopted for capturing the fully symmetrical features of the empirical correlation. To address the underfitting concerns of this model, theoretical foundations are laid for relaxing constraints on the interaction parameter via a discrete spatial grid. Moreover, to account for both prevailing wind speed and direction, we propose a novel form of Lagrangian covariance function and prove its validity under any finite-dimensional Euclidean space. Furthermore, we propose a regime-switching covariance model to enable the prevailing winds in the Lagrangian covariance function to vary by regime. This model is essentially a p-th order Markov chain Gaussian field with the Markov property held in the time domain. We investigate its limiting behaviour as well as its convergence rate and present a parameter estimation method. The superior performance of the proposed models is observed for both observed and unobserved weather stations, highlighting their utility for future wind farm site planning. The thesis concludes by exploring options for allowing regime-specific prevailing winds to vary by region, resulting in region-specific prevailing winds under each regime. This approach is motivated by the spatially varying benefits of modelling prevailing winds. New methods are proposed for estimating and incorporating regime-dependent prevailing winds into regime-switching covariance models, resulting in improved predictive performance for forecasting hourly wind speed at 142 weather stations in Alberta.
"Emancipation to Immigration" in Mandarin Brazil: Race, Representation, and Memory
Creators: name: Lee, Ana Paulina
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2018
Subjects: Emigration and immigration
Migrant Labor
Immigrants
Abolitionists
Caricatures and cartoons
Chinese

description: This chapter examines the developments that led Chinese migrant laborers to Brazil, through analyzing documents written by late Qing dynasty diplomats and officials who traveled to Brazil to open up Chinese immigration routes. Qing officials used a word for immigration that has a synonymous meaning with colonization (yizhi). Brazil, to them, presented a viable option for both due to its vast territory and inclusive citizenship laws. I discuss late Qing officials’ concerns in opening immigration and trade routes between China and Brazil in relation to Brazilian abolitionists’ preoccupations with emancipation, national independence, and the new nation’s desire to whiten its racial makeup. This chapter explores the cultural work that illustrations about Qing dynasty officials served, including caricatures of mandarins that appeared in abolitionist print journals.

In Mandarin Brazil, Ana Paulina Lee explores the centrality of Chinese exclusion to the Brazilian nation-building project, tracing the role of cultural representation in producing racialized national categories. Lee considers depictions of Chineseness in Brazilian popular music, literature, and visual culture, as well as archival documents and Brazilian and Qing dynasty diplomatic correspondence about opening trade and immigration routes between Brazil and China. In so doing, she reveals how Asian racialization helped to shape Brazil's image as a racial democracy.

Mandarin Brazil begins during the second half of the nineteenth century, during the transitional period when enslaved labor became unfree labor—an era when black slavery shifted to "yellow labor" and racial anxieties surged. Lee asks how colonial paradigms of racial labor became a part of Brazil's nation-building project, which prioritized "whitening," a fundamentally white supremacist ideology that intertwined the colonial racial caste system with new immigration labor schemes. By considering why Chinese laborers were excluded from Brazilian nation-building efforts while Japanese migrants were welcomed, Lee interrogates how Chinese and Japanese imperial ambitions and Asian ethnic supremacy reinforced Brazil's whitening project. Mandarin Brazil contributes to a new conversation in Latin American and Asian American cultural studies, one that considers Asian diasporic histories and racial formation across the Americas.
Endocrine adaptation to repeated psychological stress in the adult male rat depends on central activation of vasopressin V1a receptors
Creators: name: Gray, Jennifer Megan
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2012

description: The aim of this thesis was to investigate the brain pathways regulating the decline, or habituation of glucocorticoid responses to repeated exposure of psychological stress. In the first study, adult male rats were exposed to repeated bouts of restraint stress and tested for changes in endocrine responses and neuropeptide expression in the brain. Stress-induced elevations in glucocorticoids decreased as restraint was repeated, and this decline was associated with increased mRNA levels of the neuropeptide vasopressin in the medial amygdala and the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis. This suggested that central vasopressin signaling might be involved in coordinating glucocorticoid habituation. In a follow up experiment, adult male rats were again repeatedly restrained, however this time animals received continuous intracerebroventricular infusion of saline or an antagonist for the vasopressin V1a receptor. As expected, saline treated males showed stress-induced increases in vasopressin mRNA levels and habituation of glucocorticoid responses. Blocking activation of the vasopressin V1a receptor had no effect on basal or acute stress glucocorticoid levels. Antagonism did however attenuate habituation of glucocorticoid responses during subsequent restraint exposures. These findings indicated that habituation of endocrine stress responses depends on central vasopressin signaling. In the final set of experiments, saline and antagonist treated male rats were again repeatedly restrained, but this time brains were analyzed for changes in cellular activation using immunohistochemical detection of Fos protein. Antagonism had no effect on basal Fos expression, but blunted the habituation of repeated stress-induced Fos responses within the hypothalamus and select forebrain regions. Furthermore, a separate experiment revealed that repeated restraint induces region-specific changes in central V1a receptor binding levels which included decreases in the hippocampus, thalamus and central amygdala, but increases in the septum and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis. Overall, these studies show that habituation of glucocorticoid responses depends on central vasopressin V1a receptor signaling. The findings also suggest that stress-induced increases in V1a receptor binding within the bed nucleus and septum might be especially relevant in promoting habituation of glucocorticoid responses.
Puzzles of the interplanetary magnetic field in the inner heliosphere
Creators: name: Khabarova, Olga
name: Obridko, Vladimir
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Space Physics (physics.space-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Deviations of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) from Parker's model are frequently observed in the heliosphere at different distances r from the Sun. Usually, it is supposed that the IMF behavior corresponds to Parker's model overall, but there is some turbulent component that impacts and disrupts the full picture of the IMF spatial and temporal distribution. However, the analysis of multi-spacecraft in-ecliptic IMF measurements from 0.29 AU to 5 AU shows that the IMF radial evolution is rather far from expected. The radial IMF component decreases with the adiabatic power index (|Br| \sim r^-5/3), the tangential component |Bt| \sim r^-1.1 and, the IMF strength B \sim r^-1.4. This means that the IMF is not completely frozen in the solar wind. Possibly, turbulent processes in the inner heliosphere significantly influence the IMF expansion. This means that the IMF is not completely frozen in the solar wind. It is possible that turbulent processes in the inner heliosphere significantly influence the IMF expansion. This is confirmed by the analysis of the Br distribution's radial evolution. We consider a quasi-continuous magnetic reconnection, occurring both at the heliospheric current sheet and at local current sheets inside the IMF sectors, to be a key process responsible for the solar wind turbulization with heliocentric distance as well as for the breakdown of the frozen-in IMF law.
description: 10 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables, Preprint IZMIRAN, Published in the Astrophysical Journal, 2012
title: Understanding the Culture of a Children’s Day Surgery Unit and its Influence on Day Surgery Nurses’ Pain Assessment Practice: A Focused Ethnography
Creators: name: Peters, Kaleigh
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Nursing
subject: FOS: Health sciences
subject: Children
subject: Pain
subject: Pain Assessment
subject: Culture
subject: Nursing

description: Background: Unit culture is an important factor to explore when studying nursing due to the highly social nature of nursing practice. Pediatric day surgery nurses are responsible for the assessment and management of children’s pain after surgery, but little is known about how their pain assessment practice is influenced by the nursing unit culture within which they work. The purpose of this study was to understand the unit culture of a pediatric day surgery unit through the perspectives of unit nurses, and how the culture has shaped their pain assessment practice when caring for children experiencing pain after surgery. Methods: Focused ethnography was used to explore the culture of a pediatric day surgery unit in Western Canada. Participants were nurses who worked regularly on the day surgery unit. Data was collected through document analysis of pain related policies, protocols, guidelines, and education; semi-structured interviews, and two focus groups. Data analysis was iterative and inductive based on the above data generated with the participants and deductive moving from analysis to interpretation in line with the chosen methodology. Results: The pediatric unit culture can be described with three major themes; the nursing team as the keystone of the unit, navigating tension between nurse priorities and organizational practices, and the dissonant relationship between day surgery nurses and outsiders. These aspects of the unit culture shaped nurses’ pain assessment practice and created shared definitions and practices. The unit nurses had a shared definition and expectation of pain which led to unit practices of anticipating and expecting pain, and giving ‘as needed’ pain medication on a schedule. The tension between nurse priorities and organizational practices led nurses to feel they did not have time for children to be in pain and so the reality of pain assessment on the day surgery unit was not to nurses’ desired standard. Nurses also placed behavioural expectations on their patients that could disrupt their pain assessment practice. Conclusion: Pediatric day surgery nurses live and work on a complex and fast-paced unit that necessitates efficiency and efficacy. Understanding the uniqueness and reality of the unit culture and nursing team is essential when introducing new pain related initiatives and bridging the theory practice gap.
Hybrid method for understanding black-hole mergers: Inspiralling case
Creators: name: Nichols, David A.
name: Chen, Yanbei
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We adapt a method of matching post-Newtonian and black-hole-perturbation theories on a timelike surface (which proved useful for understanding head-on black-hole-binary collisions) to treat equal-mass, inspiralling black-hole binaries. We first introduce a radiation-reaction potential into this method, and we show that it leads to a self-consistent set of equations that describe the simultaneous evolution of the waveform and of the timelike matching surface. This allows us to produce a full inspiral-merger-ringdown waveform of the l=2, m=2,-2 modes of the gravitational waveform of an equal-mass black-hole-binary inspiral. These modes match those of numerical-relativity simulations well in phase, though less well in amplitude for the inspiral. As a second application of this method, we study a merger of black holes with spins antialigned in the orbital plane (the "superkick" configuration). During the ringdown of the superkick, the phases of the mass- and current-quadrupole radiation become locked together, because they evolve at the same quasinormal mode frequencies. We argue that this locking begins during merger, and we show that if the spins of the black holes evolve via geodetic precession in the perturbed black-hole spacetime of our model, then the spins precess at the orbital frequency during merger. In turn, this gives rise to the correct behavior of the radiation, and produces a kick similar to that observed in numerical simulations.
description: 25 pages, 15 figures, 1 table, updated to match the paper published in Phys. Rev. D
title: "It's Just Worse": The Experience of Emergency Nurses Three Years Into the COVID-19 Pandemic
Creators: name: Alphonsus, Lisa
Publisher: name: Nursing
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Emergency Nursing
subject: Pandemic
subject: COVID-19
subject: Qualitative Description
subject: Thematic Analysis
subject: Burnout
subject: Moral Distress
subject: Experience
subject: Sadness
subject: Nursing
subject: FOS: Health sciences

description: The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted healthcare professionals. Prior to the pandemic, emergency nurses were already susceptible to psychological distress and being at the frontline of the pandemic, they have experienced increased rates of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, moral distress, and burnout. There is limited qualitative research on emergency nurses’ experience that spans the entirety of the pandemic, particularly in the third year. Using qualitative description, the aim of this research was to understand the experience of emergency nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Semi-structured interviews with five experienced emergency nurses were conducted and analysed using Braun and Clark’s (2006) framework of reflexive thematic analysis. Four themes emerged and were described: fear and anxiety of the unknown, a ton of sadness, it’s just nice to get our side of the story out, and it’s just worse. This research allows us to see the long-term effects of the pandemic, demonstrating that emergency nurses experienced the pandemic as getting worse over time. Emergency nurses have demonstrated profound courage, compassion, resilience, strength, and determination throughout the pandemic, however, it has resulted in them experiencing a heavy toll. The pandemic has left emergency nurses heartbroken, hopeless, exhausted, and feeling helpless with nurses leaving the emergency department as well as the nursing profession. Urgent support, resources, and advocacy is needed to help mitigate the toll of the pandemic and the effect it has had on emergency nurses. Understanding their experience is the first step in this essential process.
Cyclin-dependent kinase control of motile ciliogenesis
Creators: name: Vladar, Eszter K.
name: Stratton, Miranda B.
name: Saal, Maxwell L.
name: Salazar-De Simone, Glicella
name: Wang, Xiangyuan
name: Wolgemuth, Debra J.
name: Stearns, Tim
name: Axelrod, Jeffrey D.
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: Cyclin-dependent kinases
subject: DNA replication
subject: DNA-protein interactions
subject: Microbiology
subject: FOS: Biological sciences
subject: Cell organelles--Formation

description: Cycling cells maintain centriole number at precisely two per cell in part by limiting their duplication to S phase under the control of the cell cycle machinery. In contrast, postmitotic multiciliated cells (MCCs) uncouple centriole assembly from cell cycle progression and produce hundreds of centrioles in the absence of DNA replication to serve as basal bodies for motile cilia. Although some cell cycle regulators have previously been implicated in motile ciliogenesis, how the cell cycle machinery is employed to amplify centrioles is unclear. We use transgenic mice and primary airway epithelial cell culture to show that Cdk2, the kinase responsible for the G1 to S phase transition, is also required in MCCs to initiate motile ciliogenesis. While Cdk2 is coupled with cyclins E and A2 during cell division, cyclin A1 is required during ciliogenesis, contributing to an alternative regulatory landscape that facilitates centriole amplification without DNA replication.
title: Application of 3D Printing in Calcium Looping for Carbon Capture
Creators: name: Ince, Cameron James
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Carbon Capture
subject: CO2 Adsorption
subject: 3D Printing
subject: Calcium Looping
subject: Engineering--Chemical
subject: Engineering--Environmental

description: Calcium looping was first proposed in 1999 as an alternative CO2 removal process that functions using two interconnected fluidized bed reactors filled with limestone sorbent. Since that time research has been focused on increasing the stability of the limestone sorbent and discovering the optimal operating conditions. This material is available both from naturally occurring mineral formations, and from industrial sources such as steel slag. With the advent of additive manufacturing and 3D printing there has been some nascent research conducted on 3D printed sorbents for use in carbon capture and catalysis. Fluidized bed processes like calcium looping are an area where monolith sorbents may lead to lower costs of capture, by reducing the pressure drop across the column, as well as sorbent attrition. In this work a novel limestone mixture was created and then extruded through a commercially available 3D printer, in order to create limestone monoliths which can be used for carbon capture in a calcium looping system. Limestone was commercially sourced, then pulverized, milled, and sieved to form a fine powder with a particle diameter less than 63µm. This was then mixed into a paste and extruded into a variety of geometries. These monoliths were tested inside of a 1” ID 316 SS reactor. Four monoliths were tested in total, and their adsorptive capacities, as well as pressure drops were compared with a random packing and pure limestone powder. Reaction conditions inside of the reactor consisted of a mild calcination and carbonation. Calcination was done at 850°C, under pure N2, whereas carbonation was conducted at 650°C with 15% CO2, balance N2. The monolith demonstrated a slightly lower adsorption capacity than a powder, but showed higher stability over ten cycles, and less sintering. The adsorptive performance of these monoliths was slightly lower than the traditional powder, but the pressure drop across the column was reduced by ~58% on average. This provides a proof of concept that limestone based calcium oxide (CaO) could be used in a fixed-bed reactor system, as opposed to the traditional fluidized bed system.
Magnetically-levitating disks around supermassive black holes
Creators: name: Gaburov, Evghenii
name: Johansen, Anders
name: Levin, Yuri
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: In this paper we report on the formation of magnetically-levitating accretion disks around supermassive black holes. The structure of these disks is calculated by numerically modelling tidal disruption of magnetized interstellar gas clouds. We find that the resulting disks are entirely supported by the pressure of the magnetic fields against the component of gravitational force directed perpendicular to the disks. The magnetic field shows ordered large-scale geometry that remains stable for the duration of our numerical experiments extending over 10% of the disk lifetime. Strong magnetic pressure allows high accretion rate and inhibits disk fragmentation. This in combination with the repeated feeding of manetized molecular clouds to a supermassive black hole yields a possible solution to the long-standing puzzle of black hole growth in the centres of galaxies.
description: 11 pages, 10 figures, accepted to ApJ, references added
title: Accurate Early Prediction of Leafy Spurge Invasion Using Species Distribution Models (SDMs) in Alberta
Creators: name: Zardecki, Natalie Ruth
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: SDM
subject: Species Distribution Model
subject: Leafy spurge
subject: Alberta
subject: Ecology
subject: FOS: Biological sciences

description: Globalization has resulted in the development of new ecological communities with the introduction of new species to native habitats. While some introduced species benefit their surrounding environments or leave insignificant impacts, others are invasive and decrease an area’s ecological stability. One such invasive plant species, commonly known as Leafy spurge, is increasing in concern to Alberta’s grasslands and agricultural industries. The plant produces a noxious latex that is toxic to livestock and aggressively outcompetes surrounding vegetation. Once established in an environment, Leafy spurge becomes resistant to control mechanisms, requiring multiple treatments to reduce patch sizes. To better predict Leafy spurge’s invasion status in Alberta, I explored the development of Species Distribution Models (SDMs) using BIOMOD2 and MaxENT approaches to compare their predictive abilities using bioclimatic and ecological variables and then tested the accuracy of the models with independent data from field surveys. Results indicated that BIOMOD2 models are more accurate due to the ensemble-modelling approach, which had evaluation scores consistently higher than those of MaxENT, and the inclusion of variables relating to establishment and dispersal contributed more to model accuracy than bioclimatic variables. With the use of this SDM for Leafy spurge invasion in Alberta, mitigating controls can be effectively implemented to limit its spread and predict at-risk areas in need of greater surveillance.
Coulomb blockade of Majorana fermion induced transport
Creators: name: Zazunov, A.
name: Yeyati, A. Levy
name: Egger, R.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We study Coulomb charging effects for transport through a topologically nontrivial superconducting wire, where Majorana bound states are present at the interface to normal-conducting leads. We construct the general Keldysh functional integral representation, and provide detailed results for the nonlinear current-voltage relation under weak Coulomb blockade conditions.
description: 10 pages, 3 figures; version to appear in Phys. Rev. B (one figure added, presentation improved)
Slopes of the U_7 Operator Acting on a Space of Overconvergent Modular Forms
Creators: name: McMurdy, Ken
name: Kilford, Lloyd
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Number Theory (math.NT)
subject: FOS: Mathematics

description: Let χ be the primitive Dirichlet character of conductor 49 defined by χ(3)=ζ, for ζ a primitive 42nd root of unity. We explicitly compute the slopes of the U_7 operator acting on the space of overconvergent modular forms on X_1(49) with weight k and character either χ^{7k-6} or χ^{8-7k}, depending on the embedding of Q(ζ) into C_7. By applying results of Coleman, and of Cohen-Oesterlé, we are then able to conclude the slopes of U_7 acting on all classical Hecke newforms of the same weight and character.
Confined Cubic Blue Phases under Shear
Creators: name: Henrich, O.
name: Stratford, K.
name: Marenduzzo, D.
name: Coveney, P. V.
name: Cates, M. E.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
subject: Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
subject: Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph)
subject: Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We study the behaviour of confined cubic blue phases under shear flow via lattice Boltzmann simulations. We focus on the two experimentally observed phases, blue phase I and blue phase II. The disinclination network of blue phase II continuously breaks and reforms under shear, leading to an oscillatory stress response in time. The oscillations are only regular for very thin samples. For thicker samples, the shear leads to a "stick-slip" motion of part of the network along the vorticity direction. Blue phase I responds very differently: its defect network undergoes seemingly chaotic rearrangements under shear, irrespective of system size.
description: 10 pages, 5 figures, to be published in J. Phys. Condens. Matter (2012)
How biological attention mechanisms improve task performance in a large-scale visual system model
Creators: name: Lindsay, Grace Wilhelmina
name: Miller, Kenneth D.
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2018
Subjects: Neurophysiology--Mathematical models
Visual perception
Neural networks (Neurobiology)
Attention

description: How does attentional modulation of neural activity enhance performance? Here we use a deep convolutional neural network as a large-scale model of the visual system to address this question. We model the feature similarity gain model of attention, in which attentional modulation is applied according to neural stimulus tuning. Using a variety of visual tasks, we show that neural modulations of the kind and magnitude observed experimentally lead to performance changes of the kind and magnitude observed experimentally. We find that, at earlier layers, attention applied according to tuning does not successfully propagate through the network, and has a weaker impact on performance than attention applied according to values computed for optimally modulating higher areas. This raises the question of whether biological attention might be applied at least in part to optimize function rather than strictly according to tuning. We suggest a simple experiment to distinguish these alternatives.
Limbodessus palmulaoides Watts & Humphreys 2006
Creators: name: Michat, Mariano C.
name: Alarie, Yves
name: Watts, Chris H. S.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2012
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Dytiscidae
Limbodessus
Limbodessus palmulaoides

description: Limbodessus palmulaoides Watts & Humphreys, 2006 (Figs 180–193) Source of material. One specimen of instar I was used for the description (Table 1). The larva was collected in association with adults at the following locality: Australia, Carey palaeovalley, Mounth Windarra calcrete, MEB site 73, BES 10292, 28.39652S, 122.19766E, 20–III–2004, coll. W. F. Humphreys and S. J. B. Cooper. Diagnosis. No diagnosis is provided owing to a lack of specimens of instars II and III. Instar I (Figs 180–193). Head (Figs 180–188). Cephalic capsule not strongly elongate (HL/HW less than 1.55); seta PA3 inserted far from setae PA1 and PA2; A3 less than 2.15 times longer than A1; A3 (instar I): (0) less than 2.05 times longer than A2; MP2 less than 1.45 times longer than MP1; MP2 1.95–2.65 times longer than MP3; LP2 less than 1.30 times longer than LP1. Legs (Figs 189–190). L3 less than 2.85 times longer than HW. Abdomen (Figs 191–193). U more than 3.75 times longer than LAS; U less than 2.35 times longer than HW; U1 more than 1.45 times longer than U2. Chaetotaxy. Frontoclypeus with 12 lamellae clypeales; additional setae on U present. Measurements and ratios that characterize the body shape are shown in Table 3. Instar II. Not available. Remarks. The species is not diagnosed above because of lack of instars II and III. However, it can be separated from all the other species described as instar I by the presence of additional setae on the urogomphus (Fig. 193), a unique feature within the taxa examined, and by the combination of characters given under the description.
description: Published as part of Michat, Mariano C., Alarie, Yves & Watts, Chris H. S., 2012, 3584, pp. 1-110 in Zootaxa 3584 (1) on pages 74-77, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3584.1.1
description: {"references": ["Watts, C. H. S. & Humphreys, W. F. (2006) Twenty-six new Dytiscidae (Coleoptera) of the genera Limbodessus Guignot and Nirripirti Watts & Humphreys, from underground waters in Australia. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, 130, 123 - 185."]}
Tachyonic neutrinos and the neutrino masses
Creators: name: Ehrlich, Robert
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: With a recent claim of superluminal neutrinos shown to be in error, 2012 may not be a propitious time to consider the evidence that one or more neutrinos may indeed be tachyons. Nevertheless, there are a growing number of observations that continue to suggest this possibility -- albeit with an $m_ν^2<0$ having a much smaller magnitude than was implied by the original OPERA claim. One recently published non-standard analysis of SN 1987A neutrinos supports a tachyonic mass eigenstate, and here we show how it leads to 3 + 3 mirror neutrino model having an unconventional mass hierarchy. The model incorporates one superluminal active-sterile neutrino pair, and it is testable in numerous ways, including making a surprising prediction about an unpublished aspect of the SN 1987 A neutrinos. Additional supporting evidence involving earlier analyses of cosmic rays is summarized to add credence to the tachyonic neutrino hypothesis.
description: 18 pages, 2 figures
title: The Structure and Function of Support Networks for People with Diabetes
Creators: name: Parry, Garrett
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Diabetes
subject: Social Networks
subject: Mixed Method
subject: Education--Health
subject: Education--Social Sciences
subject: Sociology
subject: FOS: Sociology

description: This mixed methodology study integrates quantitative results from an analysis of Canadian Community Health Survey data (2015-2021) with qualitative results from an analysis of 15 semi-structured social network interviews to investigate the perceptions of support among those with diabetes. Findings show that in general, people with diabetes are less likely to feel reassured of their worth than those without diabetes. People with diabetes experience support for their diabetes care as nested within a relational history of supportive behaviours and within a pattern of relational interaction that makes diabetes-specific support appropriate. Relationships with other people with diabetes are often isolated from other social connections and are marked by ambivalence. Examining the perceptions of support for those with diabetes presents a unique opportunity to investigate how chronic health conditions impact networks and the behaviours that flow through them.
title: PVA-SbQ Bioinks for Biofabrication
Creators: name: Li, Zhangkang
Publisher: name: Schulich School of Engineering
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Biofabrication
subject: Hydrogel
subject: 3D bioprinting
subject: Engineering--Biomedical
subject: Biology--Cell
subject: Chemistry--Polymer

description: Biofabrication, an advanced additive manufacturing process, employs computer-controlled 3D printing devices to construct objects layer by layer. Unlike traditional 3D printing, bioprinting utilizes cells and bioinks to create organ-like hydrogels, facilitating the proliferation of living cells. Despite its potential, the advancement of biofabrication is constrained by the limited availability of suitable bioinks. The emergence of biofabrication technologies highlights the critical need for biocompatible, printable, and multifunctional bioinks. To address this challenge, this dissertation investigates a novel material: polyvinyl alcohol bearing a styrylpyridinium group (PVA-SbQ). PVA-SbQ demonstrates exceptional capabilities for creating multifunctional hydrogels using various light-activated printing methods. Importantly, this process eliminates the need for toxic crosslinkers or photoinitiators, thereby enhancing cell viability and proliferation. This dissertation commences with an in-depth exploration of the design principles underlying PVA-SbQ hydrogels, elucidating their superior crosslinking performance and hydrogel properties. Subsequently, advanced techniques such as laser-direct writing, stereolithography (SLA) printing, and embedded printing are meticulously introduced as effective methods for biofabricating PVA-SbQ hydrogels. Furthermore, the synergistic combination of PVA-SbQ with other biomaterials such as cellulose is examined to enhance its properties. The findings demonstrate that high-resolution and biocompatible PVA-SbQ hydrogels can be printed rapidly by different methods. Beyond its potential in organ printing and cell behavior regulation, PVA-SbQ shows significant promise in biomedical applications such as organ patches, wearable devices, pattern encryption, and 4D printing. This dissertation provides a profound understanding of PVA-SbQ hydrogels in terms of rational design, biofabrication strategies, and their promising applications in biomedical engineering. We anticipate that this material, in conjunction with advanced printing techniques, will offer a robust strategy for biofabrication and propel advancements in the biomedical field.
Investigating the enzymatic mechanisms of the inverting and retaining glycosyltransferases by NMR spectroscopy
Creators: name: Chan, Hau Wing
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2012

description: The overall goal of this thesis was to investigate the structures and enzymatic mechanisms of glycosyltransferases using NMR spectroscopy and enzyme kinetic measurements. The bifunctional sialyltransferase CstII from Campylobacter jejuni and the α-1,4-galactosyltransferase LgtC from Neisseria meningitidis were chosen to be the model inverting and retaining enzymes, respectively. By systematically introducing point mutations at the subunit interfaces of CstII, two active monomeric variants were obtained and characterized. In contrast to the wild-type tetramer, the monomeric CstII variants yielded good quality amide ¹H/¹⁵N-HSQC and methyl-TROSY NMR spectra. However, the absence of signals from approximately one half of the amides in the ¹H/¹⁵N-HSQC spectra of both monomeric forms suggests that the enzyme undergoes substantial conformational exchange on a msec-µsec time-scale. The histidine pKa values of CstII-F121D in its apo form were measured by monitoring the pH-dependent chemical shifts of biosynthetically incorporated [¹³Cε¹]-histidine. Consistent with its proposed catalytic role, the site-specific pKa value ~ 6.6 for His188 matches the apparent pKa value ~ 6.5 governing the pH-dependence of kcat/Km for CstII towards CMP-Neu5Ac. The enzymatic mechanism of the retaining glycosyltransferase LgtC appears to involve a “front-side attack” SNi or SNi-like mechanism with a short-lived oxocarbenium-phosphate ion pair intermediate. Furthermore, based upon X-ray crystallographic studies, two flexible loops were proposed to become ordered over the active site of LgtC upon sugar donor binding. Accordingly, NMR spectroscopy was used to investigate the dynamic properties of the enzyme with an emphasis on delineating the possible roles of these motions. The amide ¹H/¹⁵N-TROSY-HSQC and methyl-TROSY spectra of LgtC were partially assigned using a variety of NMR spectroscopic approaches, combined with mutagenesis of all the isoleucine residues. More than the expected number of methyl signals was observed, indicating that LgtC adopts multiple conformational states in equilibrium on a seconds time-scale, and that their relative populations change upon mutation and substrate binding. Furthermore, relaxation dispersion studies indicated substantial msec-µsec time-scale motions of methyl groups both within and distal to the active site in apo and substrate-bound forms of LgtC. Thus LgtC exhibits a range of dynamic behaviours potentially linked to its catalytic function. They were studies in this thesis using NMR spectroscopy and kinetic studies.
The charged lepton mass matrix and non-zero $θ_{13}$ with TeV scale New Physics
Creators: name: Rashed, Ahmed
name: Datta, Alakabha
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)
subject: High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We provide an explicit structure of the charged lepton mass matrix which is 2-3 symmetric except for a single breaking of this symmetry by the muon mass. We identify a flavor symmetric limit for the mass matrices where the first generation is decoupled from the other two in the charged lepton sector while in the neutrino sector the third generation is decoupled from the first two generations. The leptonic mixing in the symmetric limit can be, among other structures, the bi-maximal (BM) or the tri-bimaximal (TBM) mixing. Symmetry breaking effects are included both in the charged lepton and the neutrino sector to produce corrections to the leptonic mixing and explain the recent $θ_{13}$ measurements. A model that extends the SM by three right handed neutrinos, an extra Higgs doublet, and two singlet scalars is introduced to generate the leptonic mixing.
description: 28 pages, 24 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1111.3072
title: Generative AI Tools for Research
Creators: name: Murphy, James E.
name: James, Kathleen
Publisher: name: Libraries & Cultural Resources
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: artificial intelligence
subject: academic integrity
subject: information science
subject: generative AI in research

description: Slides from workshop presentation (PDF, Powerpoint) Centre for Artificial Intelligence Ethics, Literacy, and Integrity (CAILEI) University of Calgary
description: This workshop will explore the emerging role of generative AI tools in identifying relevant literature for academic projects. Participants will gain insights into various AI powered platforms designed to support research and academic writing and learn to identify the appropriate tools to fit their needs. By the end of this session, learners will: Identify and evaluate generative AI tools relevant to literature searching and understand how to incorporate them into the research process Select the appropriate tool for their research needs Critically assess the limitations and ethical implications of using AI-powered tools in academic work
Modernizing Africa's fresh produce supply chains without rapid supermarket takeover: towards a definition of research and investment priorities
Creators: name: Tschirley, David
name: Miltone Ayieko
name: Munguzwe Hichaambwa
name: Goeb, Joey
name: Loescher, Wayne
Publisher: name: Gates Open Research
Year: 2019

description: Modernizing Africa's fresh produce supply chains without rapid supermarket takeover: towards a definition of research and investment priorities
Phosphorus Impacts from Meat-, Dairy-, and Plant-Based Diets
Creators: name: Schroeder, Jon
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2018
Subjects: Food--Phosphorus content
Phosphatic fertilizers
Food habits
Nutrition
Phosphorus

description: Phosphorus (P) is a finite resource located within certain geologic reserves around the world. Morocco and the Western Sahara together account for roughly 75% of reserves, raising questions of how to more sustainably use this precious resource. Phosphorus is mined from rock and eventually converted into usable fertilizer, which is applied to croplands. This study aims to contribute to the literature on phosphorus sustainability by analyzing the yearly diet choices of an average American consumer using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) software. When ascertaining dietary phosphorus use, meat- and plant-based diets have traditionally been juxtaposed. Using data from the United Nations and a study by a consulting firm in Boston, the LCA queries through the food materials that meat-based, dairy-based, and plant-based diets contain, and yields a rough estimate of total P consumption in kilograms. Findings show that as anticipated, a meat-based diet is higher in P consumption than a dairy-based or plant-based diet and gives credence to the notion that consumers in their everyday lives can affect the sustainable use of scarce resources such as phosphorus. Concluding this report is a brief discussion summarizing literature findings on how to use P more sustainably in other sectors, such as wastewater treatment.
Tension in the Void: Cosmic Rulers Strain Inhomogeneous Cosmologies
Creators: name: Zumalacarregui, Miguel
name: Garcia-Bellido, Juan
name: Ruiz-Lapuente, Pilar
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: New constraints on inhomogeneous Lemaître-Tolman-Bondi (LTB) models alternative to Dark Energy are presented, focusing on adiabatic profiles with space-independent Big Bang and baryon fraction. The Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) scale at early times is computed in terms of the asymptotic value and then projected to different redshifts by following the geodesics of the background metric. Additionally, a model-independent method to constraint the local expansion rate using a prior on supernovae luminosity is presented. Cosmologies described by an adiabatic GBH matter profile with Ω_{out}=1 and Ω_{out}\leq 1 are investigated using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo analysis including the latest BAO data from the WiggleZ collaboration and the local expansion rate from the Hubble Space Telescope, together with Union-II type Ia supernovae data and the position and height of the Cosmic Microwave Background acoustic peaks. The addition of BAO data at higher redshifts increases considerably their constraining power and represents a new drawback for this type of models, yielding a value of the local density parameter Ω_{in}>0.2 which is 3σapart from the value Ω_{in}<0.15 found using supernovae. The situation does not improve if the asymptotic flatness assumption is dropped, and a Bayesian analysis shows that constrained GBH models are ruled out at high confidence. We emphasize that these are purely geometric probes, that only recently have become sufficiently constraining to independently rule out the whole class of adiabatic LTB models.
description: 37 pages, 12 figs