McGill University Thèses et mémoires publiés en 1996

Prolidase (E.C.3.4.13.9) hydrolyzes imidodipeptides. Prolidase deficiency (PD) (McKusick no. 170100) is an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by a highly variable clinical phenotype. Mutation analysis was performed on a panel of 10 PD cell lines. Single-stranded conformation polymorphism analysis (SSCP) analysis on four overlapping cDNA-PCR products covering the entire coding region of the prolidase gene revealed seven novel mutations: G $ to$ A,551 (R184Q); G $ to$ A,833 (G278D); G $ to$ A, 1342 (G448R); G $ to$ A, 1354 (E452K); delGAG, 1354-1356 (delE452); a deletion of exon 5; and a deletion of exon 7. We used inverse PCR to clone …  Read more

Obliterative bronchiolitis (OB) is the leading cause of chronic irreversible lung graft failure. It is assumed by many to be caused by chronic rejection. We hypothesized that non-specific airway inflammation induced by factors such as foreign airway deposited particles, antigens and microbes is essential for the development of OB after lung transplantation (LTx). In this study, we examined the histological and immunohistological changes in allografted airways following transtracheal installation of foreign irritant particles. Inadequate immunosuppression of lung allografts leads to severe vascular changes consistent with chronic vascular rejection but fails to induce airway inflammation and OB. The addition of a …  Read more

Scholars are in agreement that the kabuki theatre did not attain its first flowering as a complex dramatic art until the Genroku period (16881704). The Genroku period is also the earliest for which detailed study of the plays has been possible, due to the large number of playbooks that have survived. For these reasons, Genroku kabuki has long been an object of scholarly attention among Japanese theatre historians. This scholarship, however, has for the most part been shaped by the same ideological concerns that underlie other forms of Japanese intellectual discourse in the modern period. In the Meiji period (1868-1912), …  Read more

The purpose of this study was to determine how predicting ability in a ball catching task changes with age, and, to explore the predicting abilities of children with the developmental coordination disorder (DCD). There were 157 children between the ages of 5 and 12 participating in the first portion of the study. Of these children, 46 were 5 to 7 years of age and served as controls, in the second portion of the study, for 40 5 to 7-year old children with DCD. Predicting ability was tested by having the children watch a video of a boy throwing a ball …  Read more

The crossover transport regime between the quantum Hall effect and the Aharonov-Bohm effect is studied in terms of Buttiker's approach of electrical conduction. Quantum Hall effect and Aharonov-Bohm effect are very important effects in mesoscopic physics and both demonstrate unambiguously that quantum mechanics is the dominant factor in nanoscale electrical transport problems. However, they belong to situations of different dimensionality and different strength of magnetic fields. Our goal is to reveal the physics at the crossover regime between the two and find the transport properties of this transition regime. We have computed Hall resistance of a four-probe box-shaped quantum dot …  Read more

I investigated the desensitization mechanisms of the serotonin 1A (5-HT$ sb{ rm 1A}$) and 5-HT$ sb{ rm 1B}$ receptors at the molecular level. Receptor phosphorylation by second messenger kinases and G-protein coupled receptor kinases (GRK) is an initial step in the functional desensitization of G-protein coupled receptor receptors (GPCRs). Evidence suggested that PKC preactivation desensitizes the 5-HT$ sb{ rm 1A}$ receptor. In Ltk-cells, PKC preactivation is pathway-selective, blocks receptor-mediated calcium mobilization but not cAMP inhibition. My first objective was to identify if the prime phosphorylation target of PKC was the receptor itself. Four PKC phosphorylation sites on the 5-HT1A receptor …  Read more

In our Master thesis the notions of recognition by semigroups and by programs over semigroups were extended to groupoids. As a consequence of this transformation, we obtained context-free languages instead of regular with recognition by groupoids, and we obtained SAC$ sp1$ instead of NC$ sp1$ with recognition by programs over groupoids. In this thesis, we continue the investigation of the computational power of finite groupoids. We consider different restrictions on the original model. We examine the effect of restricting the kind of groupoids used, the way parentheses are placed, and we distinguish between the case where parentheses are explicitly given …  Read more

The adenovirus early region 1B 19 kiloDalton (19K) protein has been shown to play a role in the suppression of apoptosis caused either by viral or cellular inducers. While studies are beginning to unravel its function, much remains to be learned. Through my work, I have tested claims that 19K can affect transcription and found that targeting 19K directly to promoters does not significantly change the transcription levels. To allow other studies, I have constructed and expressed polyhistidine tagged 19K fusion proteins, one of which can be labelled radioactively. These fusions can be used in a variety of experiments that …  Read more

Goldsmith, Harry (Supervisor)  Read more

Government ownership of airports is inefficient and has led to large financial deficits in Canada. Terminals I and 11 at Pearson Airport are in desperate need of redevelopment. The Pearson Airport Agreements between the Federal Government and the Pearson Development Corporation ("PDC") to redevelop and operate Terminals I and II at Pearson Airport pursuant to a long term lease would have benefitted the Government through the receipt of the proceeds from the sale of the airports while being relieved of the burden of financing airport expansion. The cancellation of the Pearson Airport Agreements based on the faulty reasoning of the …  Read more

The effects of austenite grain size, level of undercooling, and strain and strain rate in compression on the austenite-to-ferrite transformation in a 0.1% C, 1.4% Mn steel were investigated. The influence of this transformation on the hot ductility of the steel in question was then examined. Samples were strained at rates from $ rm 3 times 10 sp{-4} s sp{-1}$ to $ rm 3 times 10 sp{-2} s sp{-1}$ after cooling to holding temperatures between the Ae$ sb3$ and the (undeformed) Ar$ sb3$ temperature. Deformation was found to raise the effective Ar$ sb3$ temperature almost to the Ae$ sb3$, and …  Read more

Atherosclerotic narrowing of the carotid arteries in asymptomatic individuals is associated with an increased risk of cerebrovascular ischemic events. The prevention of stroke in this context requires an understanding of the natural history of cerebrovascular atherosclerosis and the availability of an effective means for the detection and follow-up of carotid stenosis. Methodological standards for the conduct and reporting of natural history studies of asymptomatic carotid disease are proposed and used to carry out a structured methodological appraisal of the literature. The findings suggest that greater attention should be paid to the design and statistical analysis of natural history studies. A …  Read more

Many music scholars share a belief in a deep-seated connection between music and language. This belief underlies the exploration of homologies between musical and linguistic structures that have been an important area of study within our field. In recent years, however, a number of scholars have been considering larger units of musical structure, taking as their model not the syntactic structure of the sentence, but rather the organizational structure of whole narrative texts. One goal of narratology is to investigate the ways that events experienced separately are comprehended as a unified whole. Because of its attention to the interplay of …  Read more

In the present study, the polymerase chain reaction was used to generate a 0.75 kb cDNA clone encoding the mouse U1 snRNP specific C protein from a somatic cDNA library. The identity of the 0.75 kb fragment was confirmed by sequence analysis. This cDNA sequence encodes a protein that has been shown to associate specifically with the U1 snRNP. Northern blot analysis revealed that U1 snRNP C mRNA is a 0.75 kb transcript present in a variety of tissues in the mouse including, the testes, heart, intestine, lung, muscle, pancreas, spleen, kidney, brain and liver. In situ hybridization confirmed the …  Read more

This thesis comprises three independent but interrelated manuscripts. (1) The results from seven epidemiological studies of adult cancers in relation to residential exposure to power frequency magnetic fields (MF) indicated that the association between leukemia and MF has been inconsistent. It also indicated that the risks of brain tumors and breast cancer, the other cancers frequently suspected of being associated with occupational exposure to MF, were rarely investigated. Based on these epidemiological results, the analysis of the roles of chance and bias, and the criteria for causal inferences, it appears that the evidence is not strong enough to support the …  Read more

In this study, the synoptic and mesoscale environment of a case of severe convective outbreak over Alberta on 11-12 July 1985 are investigated using the state-of-the-art Mesoscale Compressible Community Model (MC2). The results of the control experiment confirm the conceptual model and the conclusion of Smith and Yau (1993a,b). A series of sensitivity experiments were conducted to study the effects of surface evapotranspiration, topography, shortwave heating and longwave cooling. The results of the sensitivity experiments are: (1) While increasing horizontal resolution of mesoscale models will likely improve the timing and location of the severe convective outbreak, the improvement in mesoscale …  Read more

Expression of the transferrin receptor (TfR) gene is developmentally regulated in mammalian cells (1), an iron-dependent post-transcription regulatory mechanism has been demonstrated in non-erythroid cell (2,3). In order to understand the molecular mechanism underlying the iron-dependent regulation of the TfR gene expression in the differentiating erythroid cell, a virus-transformed chicken erythroblast cell line, HD3 was employed in this study. We have investigated the possible effects of iron on the TfR gene expression that might involve regulatory mechanisms at the transcriptional and/or the post-transcriptional level during the HD3 cell differentiation. We found that treatment of the differentiating HD3 cell with Pyridoxal …  Read more

Chitin crystallites were prepared from crab chitin using HCl hydrolysis. On avenge, the surface charge density of the chitin crystallites was calculated to be 0.5 e/nm2 based on conductimetric titration data. The formation of a chiral nematic phase in aqueous suspensions of chitin crystallites and the in situ texture of the crystallite suspensions were investigated using polarised optical microscopy and freeze-fracture transmission electron microscopy. The effect of the interparticle electrostatic interaction on phase separation has been explored through phase diagrams and the interaction energy was calculated based on experimental zeta potentials. The flow properties of the liquid crystalline phases of …  Read more

An automated sequential assignment protocol for proteins is presented using heteronuclear 3D NMR. For the observed amino acid spin systems, the protocol includes an algorithm to determine their amino acid types. For the detected polypeptides, the protocol includes another algorithm to sequentially map them to the primary sequence. The former algorithm measures the similarity between the detected spin systems and the 20 standard amino acid patterns. Both chemical shift and topological likeness are considered. Knowing the amino acid types, the mapping algorithm assigns the detected polypeptides to proper positions within the protein primary sequence. The assignment protocol can be applied …  Read more

Superconducting thin films of BiSrCaCuO with a thickness from 0.4 to 1 $ mu$n have been successfully fabricated on (100) oriented MgO substrates by CO$ sb2$ laser ablation and post annealing. Pb-doped BiSrCaCuO targets were prepared from oxide with different ratios of metals. Oxygen pressure during deposition was found to affect the composition of the as-deposited films. Although the substrate heating improved morphology of the films, it did not have a strong effect on the stoichiometry. Good quality superconducting films were produced after a two-step annealing with a controlled rate of temperature increase, which was determined by the chamber pressures …  Read more

Fetal bovine serum (FBS) is one of the most important supplements for cell culture, and is a rich source of both defined and unknown factors required for proper cell growth. A serum-free bioassay system was developed to facilitate the purification and characterization of the heparin-binding growth factors in FBS. Three factors with different effects on erythropoiesis were isolated and identified with the combination of several chromatographic techniques. An 8 kd heparin-binding peptide which stimulated thymidine incorporation into fetal erythroid cells had an N-terminal sequence identical to insulin-like growth factor (IGF II). The growth promoting effect of this peptide was potentiated …  Read more

This thesis presents some broadly applicable algorithms for computing maximum likelihood estimates (MLE) from the incomplete data based on the stochastic approximation (SA) proposed by Robbins and Monro (1951). The usual approach for such problems is the EM algorithm. In many interesting examples, however, it is impossible to carry out either the E-step or the M-step of the EM algorithm. Although some remedial EM algorithms were developed, these algorithms could be very expensive numerically, especially when both the E-step and the M-step become intractable. The SA algorithms proposed are appealing because they avoid computing expectation within iterations and are easy …  Read more

Wainberg, Mark (Supervisor)  Read more

Pole plasm in Drosophila melanogaster, through the posteriorly localized determinant nanos, controls the formation of the abdominal segments and, through an unknown mechanism, controls the formation of the germline. oskor, vasa, and tudor are three critical genes in the pole plasm assembly pathway and their gene products, oskar RNA, Vasa protein and Tudor protein are localized in the pole plasm in a precise order. The localization of oskar and nanos mRNAs is closely related to their translational activation. We provide evidence here by in vitro biochemical assays that Vasa protein is an ATP-dependent RNA helicase, an ATPase and an RNA-binding …  Read more

A static chamber technique was used to measure methane emissions in July and August, 1995 from peatland sites in the Fort Simpson area, Northwest Territories, at the southern fringe of the discontinuous permafrost zone. Sites were classified ecologically and geomorphologically, and water table and temperature regimes were monitored. Methane emissions ranged from $-$3.3 to 1144.2 mg/m$ sp2 cdot$d, from raised frozen sites to pond sites, respectively, similar to emissions recorded from other boreal regions. Water table was the strongest predictor of CH$ sb4$ emission. Although peat temperature is significantly correlated to methane flux, it did not significantly improve the flux-water …  Read more

This dissertation provides a critical, systematic survey of economics in literary theory and practice. Since Aristotle, economic categories have been used as interpretive grounds on which to conceptualize the literary text and distinguish it as a moral or normative sphere. Because economic categories presuppose different norms of individual and social action, the use of a specific category as an interpretive ground generates a particular outlook or moral perspective. In the first part of the discussion, we critique theories in which the literary text is conceptualized as an economy. After distinguishing three distinct models of the "textual economy," we evaluate them …  Read more

Using a reconstitution assay, we have shown that the acidic phospholipids, phosphatidic acid and cardiolipin are specifically required for the reconstruction of $ rm Na sp+$ dependent transport system A from Ehrlich cells. The unsaturated fatty acyl in the $ beta$ position in the phosphatidic acid is essential for optimal reconstitution of system A transport. Regulation of system A transport has been studied for a few decades. Insulin has been shown to regulate this transporter in various cell types. The requirement for de novo protein synthesis of transporter has usually been implicated by indirect evidence. We directly proved this mechanism …  Read more

Trace metal contamination of the air-soil-tree system was examined in southern Quebec, where acid deposition and tree dieback have been recorded in high elevation forests. Mn pollution was emphasized due to its large emission from gasoline combustion in Canada. Airborne Cu, Mn, V, and Zn showed higher concentrations than those reported for other remote locations. Significant fluctuation in Mn concentrations during the winter-spring season was explored by air mass back trajectory analysis. The study suggested that high Mn concentrations resulted from the atmospheric long-range transport from Canadian industrialized and metropolitan regions. Metal concentrations in podzolic topsoils were generally higher than …  Read more

A statistical model is developed to estimate hurricane hazards in the Gulf of Mexico. The model is based on the analysis of the spatial frequency of hurricanes, the spatial variation of hurricane severity, and the attenuation of hurricane generated waves. The hurricane tracks are modelled as a random line process in space. Tests of the complete spatial randomness reject the hypothesis of a single uniform recurrence rate across the Gulf of Mexico and the inhomogeneous Poisson line process is selected as an alternative model. A non-parametric Kernel estimation procedure coupled with cross-validation is used to estimate the recurrence rate as …  Read more

While parasympathetic activation is well-known to promote AF, the effects of sympathetic stimulation on AF have not been systematically studied. The present study was designed to study effects of sympathetic stimulation on AF, and the relative effects of sympathetic and vagal stimulation on AF duration for a comparable degree of wavelength and refractory period abbreviation. The results showed that, for a comparable degree of wavelength abbreviation, sympathetic stimulation is much less effective in promoting AF than vagal stimulation. Vagal stimulation markedly increased the heterogeneity of atrial refractoriness, while sympathetic stimulation did not. The heterogeneity in atrial refractory properties may be …  Read more

Magnetic carrier technology (MCT) has found a wide range of applications, including biological cell separation, waste remediation, and raw material recovery. The challenge to MCT is to develop a new method for the preparation of magnetic carriers with the following features: high density of reactive functional groups, diversity of functionalities, and durability of surface films. In this thesis, two novel methods, molecular self-assembly and silanation, were developed for the preparation of magnetic carriers. In molecular self-assembly, 16-mercaptohexadecanoic acid (HOOC-$ rm C sb{15}H sb{30}$-SH, ie. MHA) was anchored onto the $ gamma$-Fe$ rm sb2O sb3$ surface through chemical bonding between the …  Read more

Code-sharing agreements between international airlines are designed to address passenger preferences, structural impediments, and in some situations, bilateral restrictions, through a cost efficient system of operations. In most instances, code-sharing operations divert traffic from other carriers rather an stimulating and generating new traffic. If the parties were direct competitors prior to code sharing operations, the resulting harm on competition will undoubtedly negate the benefits which may accrue towards passengers. However, the main concerns, from the passenger's viewpoint, are that of disclosure of the operating carrier and the certainty of the applicable liability regime. Furthermore, the passenger must receive clear details …  Read more

An analytical and experimental investigation was conducted to study the design and fabrication of carbon fiber track bicycle frames. A finite element software was used for the geometry development, laminate configuration, and for predicting failure using the maximum stress criteria. A load case and boundary conditions simulating actual riding conditions were developed. The stresses in each of the composite layers were found to be lower than the allowable stresses because of a properly designed geometry and laminate. Two composite frames were fabricated using the hand lay-up technique, using unidirectional and woven carbon fiber pre-preg material over an internal foam core. …  Read more

This study investigated the hypothesis that delayed first language acquisition impedes syntactic learning in a second language. English syntactic skills of two deaf groups and one control group were investigated. One group of deaf subjects acquired a first language on schedule in early childhood, American Sign Language (ASL), and commenced learning English at school age. The other deaf group had significantly delayed first language acquisition, and began learning both ASL and English at school. Two English tasks were administered, grammatical judgement and syntactic comprehension. The stimuli were grammatical and ungrammatical exemplars of six types of syntactic structure ranging from simple …  Read more

The purpose of this study is to assess the performance of the plane parallel model in analyzing satellite measurements of clouds, and to examine what role 3D cloud effects may play in explaining any discrepancies. Direct comparisons between one year of Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) scanner radiances and plane parallel model calculations are carried out under different Sun-Earth-satellite viewing configurations over ocean between 30$ sp circ$N and 30$ sp circ$S. When the plane parallel model calculations are matched to observations at nadir on a pixel-by-pixel basis by adjusting cloud fraction and cloud optical depth, the resulting frequency distributions of …  Read more

The world of telecommunications has dramatically evolved these last few years. With the wind of liberalization blowing, private companies are playing a new role in an area where monopolistic public entities had always imposed their rules. New technologies are now opening broad perspectives which were even not forecast a few years ago. In only ten years, mobile communication systems have witnessed three different technologies and are now integrating the latest concept, satellite mobile communications called S-PCS (Satellite Personal Communication Systems, which is the faculty of being contacted at anytime, anywhere). New players are emerging from the United States and tend …  Read more

The alteration of insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) and its binding proteins (IGFBP) and their effects on proliferation and differentiation of murine bone marrow-derived macrophage (BMM) precursors were investigated. Bone marrow cells exposed to 20% L929-fibroblast conditioned medium (LCM) were cultured in serum-free medium for 24 h. Western ligand blotting (WLB) analysis detected four bands in all samples. 41-kDa and 30-kDa bands were detected after 12 h and remained constant during BMM differentiation. The 28-kDa and 25-kDa proteins were almost undetectable until day 2, but accumulated significantly from day 3 to day 7. Immunoblotting analysis verified these two bands as …  Read more

This thesis consists in editing, side by side, two printed texts of Le Mystere de sainte Barbe en deux journees. The oldest (which can be found at "La Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris", call number BN Yf 1652) has been published by la Veuve Trepperel and Jehan Jehannot between the years 1511 and 1517. The other text, also to be found at "La B.N.P." (call number BN Yf 1651) is a revised edition of the former published between the years 1552 and 1585 on Simon Calvarin's press. The BN Yf 1652 contains 3 677 lignes, whilst the Calvarin's edition is of …  Read more

In the context of teleoperated mobile robotics, the use of video data is one of the most desirable sensing modalities for vehicle guidance. Unfortunately, maintaining reliable noise-free video transmission, especially in cost sensitive teleoperation applications is a frequent problem. We developed a mobile robot system for teleoperation using a robot mounted camera as a primary sensor. This system functions in a partially-known environment for which a 3D geometric map is available. In this thesis we describe aspects of the system related to enhanced reality, that is the augmentation of the returned video data with information extracted from the world knowledge …  Read more

Most low bit rate speech coders employ linear predictive coding (LPC) which models the short-term spectral information within each speech frame as an all-pole filter. In this thesis, we examine various methods that can efficiently encode spectral parameters for every 20 ms frame interval. Line spectral frequencies (LSF) are found to be the most effective parametric representation for spectral coding. Product code vector quantization (VQ) techniques such as split VQ (SVQ) and multi-stage VQ (MSVQ) are employed in intraframe spectral coding, where each frame vector is encoded independently from other frames. Depending on the product code structure, "transparent coding" quality …  Read more

The purpose of the study was to use small area analysis to estimate the attributable risk percent of tuberculosis incidence associated with AIDS incidence among Canadian-born males aged 20 to 49. Information on all incident cases of tuberculosis and AIDS between 1980 and 1991 in Vancouver and Edmonton was obtained from provincial registries. The relationship in each census tract between tuberculosis incidence among Canadian-born males aged 20 to 49 and AIDS incidence was examined using small area analysis. Covariates included tuberculosis incidence among the foreign-born and socioeconomic variables from the 1986 Canada census. In Vancouver, unemployment, tuberculosis incidence among the …  Read more

This study addressed the question of silica exposure, silicosis, and lung cancer in respect of lung particle burden. Sixty seven paraffin-embedded lung tissue samples of silicotic gold miners (39 non-lung cancer (NLC-SI) and 28 lung cancer (LC-SI)), were analyzed by transmission electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy for angular particles and fibres/cleavage fragments. Crystalline silica was characterized by X-ray powder diffraction on silver membrane filter. Results indicated that both silicotic groups had non-significantly different concentrations and sizes of all particle types except quartz. Indeed, the NLC-SI group had a higher concentration of quartz than the LC-SI (3.77 $ mu$g/mg …  Read more

Foos, Geza (Supervisor)  Read more

The autosomal dominant spinocerebellar ataxias (SCAs) are a clinically heterogeneous group of neurodegenerative diseases. Since the first description by Pierre Marie in 1893, the classification has been controversial. This is mainly due to the variety of symptoms observed and the inter- and intrafamilial variability in age of onset, clinical features, neuropathological and biochemical findings. Up to the beginning of 1993, two loci had been identified: one on the short arm of chromosome 6 and more recently a second locus assigned to the long arm of chromosome 12 in a large Cuban family. These loci are termed SCA 1 and SCA …  Read more

Economic data concerning the costs and benefits of Inuit subsistence in the Igloolik region of Nunavut were collected during the summer of 1992. The purpose of the research was to develop a method of valuation to showcase the high "profit", in economic terms, that harvested country food provides. Wildlife harvesting in Inuit communities represents a traditional way of life which is threatened by the increasing expansion of wage employment, industrial development and the availability of store bought food. However, rather than having a marginalizing effect, these changes make subsistence hunting an essential economic activity. This thesis develops a method to …  Read more

La conception des réseaux de transport CA/CC est un problème complexe nécessitant un temps de calcul très long. Bien qu’une variété d’outils d’analyse de réseaux soient disponibles à cette fin, les ingénieurs de planification comptent encore fortement sur leur expérience pour déterminer quelles conceptions alternatives de réseau sont les plus appropriées. Ceci est particulièrement vrai quand des critères multiples comme le coût, la fiabilité et d’autres critères techniques doivent faire face à des considérations environnementales ou socio-économiques. Les techniques actuelles de conception reposent principalement sur des outils d’analyse détaillée qui consomment beaucoup de temps et de ce fait, elles sont …  Read more

Three hundred and twenty men and women were exposed to five levels of conventional sexism and affirmative action-induced discrimination. No perceptual minimisation of discrimination was found: instead participants linearly maximised the impact of discrimination. New measures of emotional responses to discrimination revealed changes in both internal (depression) and external (anger) negative affect, with varying intensities of anger and depression directed at different targets. Similarly, new measures of behavioural reactions to discrimination revealed more antinormative and collectivistic behavioural intentions than previous research. Minute but consistent effects of frame condition were observed in each sample. Finally, clear differences emerged between the responses …  Read more

In this thesis my initial goal was to use yellow warblers to examine the effect of paternal care on female mate choice. I first examined whether mate choice based on paternal care could be considered adaptive. Paternal care was variable among males and important to female fitness, but, contrary to a previous report, male chest striping could not be used to predict paternal care. Females did not compensate for reductions of male parental care, which resulted in significantly reduced nestling growth. In chapter two I tested the idea that monogamy in birds is maintained because of the need for biparental …  Read more

A Fixed-Film Pressurized Tubular Bioreactor (FFPTB), which used the inner surface of a tube as the support surface, was evaluated under laboratory conditions to treat synthetic wastewater where glucose was used as the carbon source. Dissolved oxygen (DO) at the entrance of the tube was supplied in proportion to the influent chemical oxygen demand (COD) or total organic carbon (TOC) through a pressurized dissolution tank where compressed air or oxygen from a liquid oxygen cylinder was applied. Key variables included tube length and diameter, liquid flow rate, initial organic strength and gas pressure. The bioreactor was a coiled tube, 15 …  Read more