McGill University Thèses et mémoires publiés en 2007

Zucchi, John (Internal/Supervisor)  Read more

Deep sub-micron (DSM) integration brings about aggressive technology scaling to accommodate large and high-speed systems onto a single chip. The integration and migration of mixed-signal systems to smaller process nodes have shortened the traditional analog circuit design cycle and increases performance influence due to parasitic coupling. Current analog optimization tools demonstrate promising results at the schematic netlist-level, but inherited layout effects are excluded until the physical design is completed. If coupling effects are ignored or poorly modeled, schematic optimization results are no longer accurate with respect to silicon measurements. On the other hand, physical design tools are traditionally guided by …  Read more

Native and pressure-treated (600 MPa) soy protein isolates (SPI) were subjected to in vitro digestion to study the effect of pressure processing on the digestibility of SPI and the antioxidant activity of the hydrolysates and isolated low molecular weight (<1 kDa) peptides. The digestibility of SPI increased significantly (P < 0.05) with pressurization following 10 min of pepsin digestion. The total peptide content in the pepsin-pancreatin hydrolysates was unaffected by pressurization; however, the peptide profiles were altered. Peptides from hydrolysates of pressurized SPI showed higher antioxidant activity than peptides from native SPI hydrolysates as measured by the FRAP assay. In …  Read more

Poetic Afterthought is an original music composition for orchestra (2-2-2-2 / 4-2-2-1 / timp-perc / piano-harp / strings). The work comprises a cycle of seven orchestral pieces inspired by seven Chinese Classical poems. The seven orchestral pieces attempt to capture the moods and impressions of the poems while carrying hints of the original structures of the poetry as if the music speaks poetry itself.  Read more

Let K be a real quadratic number field. Let p be a prime which is inert in K. We denote the completion of K at the place p by Kp. Let ƒ > 1 be a positive integer coprime to p. In this thesis we give a p-adic construction of special elements u(r, ??) ∈ Kxp for special pairs (r, ??) ∈ (ℤ/ƒℤ)x x Hp where Hp = ℙ¹(ℂp) ℙ¹(ℚp) is the so called p-adic upper half plane. These pairs (r, ??) can be thought of as an analogue of classical Heegner points on modular curves. The special elements u(r, …  Read more

Disease maps are geographical maps that display local estimates of disease risk. When the disease is rare, crude risk estimates can be highly variable, leading to extreme estimates in areas with low population density. Bayesian hierarchical models are commonly used to stabilize the disease map, making them more easily interpretable. By exploiting assumptions about the correlation structure in space and time, the statistical model stabilizes the map by shrinking unstable, extreme risk estimates to the risks in surrounding areas (local spatial smoothing) or to the risks at contiguous time points (temporal smoothing). Extreme estimates that are based on smaller populations …  Read more

Mycobacterium bovis Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) strains are live attenuated vaccines. These strains are genetically heterogeneous and the accumulation of deletions and mutations, particularly those affecting regulatory and antigenic proteins, has been proposed to have contributed to overly-attenuated vaccines. To examine this possibility, the effects of the two mutations incurred by BCG vaccines was formally studied through gene-deletion and complementation studies. First, the effect of deletion of the RD2 region was examined by over-expressing the antigenic protein MPB64 in a late strain of BCG and by creating an RD2-knockout strain in M. tuberculosis. These two approaches revealed minimal changes attributable to …  Read more

The thesis presents a comparison of four techniques used for stereotactic radiosurgery, consisting of the static conformal beam, static cone-based, proton therapy, and the Gamma Knife techniques. The comparisons involved six test cases in which phantom target lesions were created in the center of the modified anthropomorphic RandoRTM head. The phantom lesions presented in the study were extreme irregular cases that ranged in shape and volume and were near a critical structure to receive minimal dose during treatment planning. The best treatment plans from each technique for all studies were selected and the extracted data was analyzed using physical and …  Read more

Low profile additives (LPA) are thermoplastics that are incorporated to unsaturated polyester (UP) resins in order to improve the surface finish of UP/fibreglass composites, widely used in automotive applications. The effect of using LPA on the thermo-mechanical properties of resin transfer moulded UP/fibreglass composites is investigated. The flexural and shear properties are measured by three-point bending tests. The trend of these mechanical properties is identified for 0% to 40% LPA content. All the mechanical properties like flexural strength, flexural modulus and short beam strength reduce upon addition of LPA. The specimens fail by tension in the flexural test and show …  Read more

Three studies were conducted to examine the acoustic markers of sarcasm in English and in Cantonese, and the manner in which such markers are perceived across these languages. The first study consisted of acoustic analyses of sarcastic utterances spoken in English to verify whether particular prosodic cues correspond to English sarcastic speech. Native English speakers produced utterances expressing sarcasm, sincerity, humour, or neutrality. Measures taken from each utterance included fundamental frequency (F0), amplitude, speech rate, harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR, to probe voice quality), and one-third octave spectral values (to probe resonance). The second study was conducted to ascertain whether specific acoustic …  Read more

This thesis examines the Cortés map of Tenochtitlan (1524) and its derivatives to explore the ways the map emerges in diverse forms, and in different contexts, throughout the sixteenth century. For nearly two hundred years, the only images of Tenochtitlan, or Mexico City, to be published in Europe were derived from the original Cortés map, which represented the city before its conquest by the Spanish in 1521. The maps of Tenochtitlan included in Benedetto Bordone's Libro di Benedetto Bordone nel quale si ragiona tutte l'Isole del mondo (1528) and Giovanni Battista Ramusio's Navigationi e Viaggi (1556) brought the city into …  Read more

Adult rats produce two main types of ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs), occurring at 22 and 50 kHz USVs. These calls are associated with aversive and rewarding stimuli, respectively. The neural mechanism of amphetamine-induced calling was examined in lesion and antagonist studies. We also tested whether amphetamine-induced 50 kHz USVs could predict individual differences in intravenous self-administration or conditioned place preference behavior. Further experiments examined whether 50 kHz USVs could be evoked by amphetamine-conditioned sensory stimuli and by rewarding electrical brain stimulation. Overall, our experimental findings: (1) identify certain experimental conditions that increase amphetamine-induced 50 kHz calling, (2) provide evidence that these …  Read more

A unique penetration instrument has been developed to evaluate the role of surfactants in kraft pulping process. This instrument can screen surfactants which can improve the wood impregnation more effectively and much faster than pilot-plant experiment. The role of surfactants in wood penetration has been explored. Surfactants can improve wood impregnation by dispersing the extractives in the wood structure and optimizing the interfacial properties between wood surface and kraft liquor. The addition of two blends of anionic and nonionic surfactants into kraft pulping process results in a significant reduction of the screen rejects and an increase of screened yield at …  Read more

Mild head injury or concussion accounts for as many as 90% of all traumatic brain injuries and can sometime result in long-lasting and disabling post-concussion symptoms (PCS), even in the absence of detectable structural damage to the brain by morphological imaging. To date, the nature of persistent PCS following mild head injury remains poorly understood as objective and scientifically valid diagnostic tools are practically absent. This, in turn, likely accounts for missed diagnoses, prevents accurate assessment of the severity of the injury and creates difficulties for achieving proper patient management. This dissertation describes 4 functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies …  Read more

Obesity is a growing major public health concern and is associated with various co-morbidities. Given recent evidence of increased bacterial infections in bariatric patients, morbid obesity may adversely affect the immune system. As a pleiotropic pro-inflammatory mediator produced primarily by adipocytes, leptin is a link between metabolism and immunity. Consequently, excessive leptin secretion may hinder the body's ability to defend against bacterial infection. This situation arises in morbid obesity, where chronic hyperleptinemia is observed. We used an in vivo murine model of hyperleptinemia to determine whether abnormal levels of circulating leptin have a detrimental effect on the trafficking of neutrophils, …  Read more

This qualitative inquiry explores Chinese Canadians' experience of the death and dying of a family member in a Canadian cultural context. The participants of this study consisted of eight bereaved Chinese immigrants and four Chinese professionals whose work is closely related to the field of death and dying. Following a phenomenological research methodology, data was collected through in-depth interviews and participant observation. The narratives of the study participants were then analyzed. The results of the study identify the participants' four coping characteristics and also highlight their coping strategies and the rationale behind them. Analysis of the data leads to insights …  Read more

This study investigated the academic adaptation of five Mainland Chinese doctoral students in the Faculty of Education at McGill University, Quebec, Canada. Using individual interviewing as the primary research method, the study revealed 12 major challenge areas, i.e., English as a second language, financial difficulties, outsider feelings, worries about career paths, course work, research network, TA/RA experiences, differences between doctoral and master's studies, isolation, pace of the PhD, motherhood and doctoral study, and adjusting research directions. Through comparing the findings with the literature and the data from secondary sources, this study concluded that the academic adaptation of Mainland Chinese doctoral …  Read more

Adaptive postfiltering has become a common part of speech coding standards based on the Linear Prediction Analysis-by-Synthesis algorithm to decrease audible coding noise. However, a conventional adaptive postfilter is based on empirical assumptions of masking phenomena, which sometimes makes it hard to balance between noise reduction and speech distortion. This thesis introduces a novel perceptual postfiltering system for low bit rate speech coders. The proposed postfilter works at the decoder, as is the case for the conventional adaptive postfilter. Specific human auditory properties are considered in the postfilter design to improve speech quality. A Gaussian Mixture Model based Minimum Mean …  Read more

Integrated high-temperature (HT) ultrasonic sensors have been developed successfully by using piezoelectric bismuth titanate and lead zirconate titanate films HT ultrasonic transducers for real-time, non-destructive, and non-intrusive diagnosis of polymer injection molding (IM) processes. The HT ultrasonic sensors can be integrated onto the barrel and/or mold of IM machine, according to the customer's requirements. These sensors can be operated up to 400°C without cooling system and ultrasonic couplant, and can be miniaturized with sufficient signal strength and signal-to-noise ratio. The chosen IM processes are grouped to large- and small-scale 1M processes. The large-scale ones include conventional IM, co-injection molding (COIM), …  Read more

Stromvik, Martina (Supervisor1)  Read more

Concern regarding grinding media wear is as old as the invention of the tumbling mill itself. Over the years many techniques have been tried in an attempt to minimize costs associated with grinding. These have included experimentation with different metals, non-metals and different shapes. Through all this, steel grinding balls have proved the most effective media for comminution in tumbling mills. As old as the tumbling mill is, no accurate technique for estimating the wear of the ball charge has been developed. The mining industry still utilizes the Bond Abrasion test that was developed in the early 1960s. This test …  Read more

The aim of this thesis is to develop a novel technique for the estimation of firing rate dynamics from single-unit recordings of neural pulse trains. This method applies an offline digital filtering technique to extract information transmitted by a neuron in teens of a rate code. While there is increasing evidence that the traditional rate coding cannot account for all the information transmitted by a cell, and that information may also be contained in the precise timing of spikes, the firing rate signal remains the benchmark by which the vast majority of electrophysiological studies relating neural activity to functional behaviour …  Read more

The objectives of this study were to assess the concentration of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and its isoenzymes (intestinal, liver/bone/kidney, placental) in 2nd trimester amniotic fluid (AF) and to establish whether total ALP or placental ALP were related to infant birth weight (BW) or gestational age (GA). 518 biobanked AF samples were analyzed using fluorometry to measure ALP concentrations. Analysis of variance showed that mothers giving birth to small-for-gestational-age infants had higher placental AF ALP concentration compared to those giving birth to appropriate-for-gestational-age infants, when controlling for established predictors of birth weight. Placental ALP was also elevated in the AF of …  Read more

The problem of musicians’ involvement in intelligence operations during the late Tudor and early Stuart years has to date remained relatively unexplored. There is convincing evidence, however, that artists from different disciplines were particularly targeted for recruitment in intelligence operations, designed by Elizabeth I’s councillors, Willam Cecil, Lord Burghley and Francis Walsingham, to infiltrate and disable Catholic oppositional networks on the Continent and in England in the aftermath of the Elizabethan settlement on religion. The Scottish revolt that preceded the arrival of Mary, Queen of Scots in England (1568), the Northern Rising of Catholic Earls (end of 1569), the excommunication …  Read more

Organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) with region-regular poly(3-hexylthiophene) (rr-P3HT) as active semiconductor were fabricated and characterized. Various methods for improving device performance were investigated. These methods include: the use of dip coating technique (rather than spin coating), thermal annealing, polymer doping with iron chloride (FeCl 3), and stamping of "dry" poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) stamp before polymer deposition. Through experimental results, it is clear that thermal annealing increases charge carrier mobility of P3HT OFETs. On average an increase of four times in charge mobility was observed after thermal annealing was performed. Dip coated samples also resulted in higher mobility values than spin coated …  Read more

It has been hypothesized that head-unrestrained gaze shifts are controlled by an error signal produced by a feedback loop. It has also been hypothesized that the superior colliculus (SC) is within this feedback loop. If the feedback-to-SC hypothesis is valid, an unexpected mid-flight perturbation in gaze trajectory should be quickly followed by a concurrent change in the discharges of collicular saccade-related neurons. To verify this prediction experimentally, primate head movements were unexpectedly and briefly halted during head-unrestrained gaze shifts in the dark. Perturbed gaze shifts were composed of first a gaze saccade made when the head was immobilized by the …  Read more

This thesis consists of three essays. The firsts essay looks at the optimal export policy in the context of an vertically related industry with differentiated products, and analyze effects of the degree of product substitutability and market structure on the determination of such policy. It is shown that results obtained in a similar model with homogenous goods rivalry no longer hold when the goods are differentiated. Indeed, the degree of product substitutability plays an important role in the determination of export policies, it also determine whether a country can be better off under a trade policy war compared to free …  Read more

DNA double strand breaks (DSB) are the most toxic of all types of DNA lesions. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, DNA DSBs are predominantly repaired by the homologous recombination repair (HRR) pathway. The initial step of HRR requires extensive processing of DNA ends from the 5' to 3' direction by specific endo-exonuclease(s) (EE) at the DSB sites, but no endo-exonuclease(s) has yet been conclusively determined for such processing of DSBs. S. cerevisiae TRM2/RNC1 is a candidate endo-exonuclease that was previously implicated for its role in the HRR pathway and was also shown to have methyl transferase activity primarily located at its c-terminus. …  Read more

My dissertation discusses refugee rights and post-repatriation integration in South Asia in the context of debates over "citizenship." Postcolonial state-formation processes in South Asia have profoundly shaped questions of belonging and membership. As a result, official citizenship has become an important marker of group inclusion and exclusion in South Asian states. Using the literature on citizenship, I discuss the "belonging" claims of non-citizens (refugees) and argue that in practice this "belonging" extends beyond the state-centric "citizenship" view of membership. In doing so, I address two sets of interrelated questions: what factors determine whether or not refugees will be repatriated in …  Read more

While some strains of Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans serve as causative agents of Localized Aggressive Periodontitis (LAP), there are strains of A. actinomycetemcomitans that live as members of the microflora in the oral cavities of periodontally healthy individuals. Two-component signal transduction is an important determinant of bacterial behaviour and plays an essential role in the regulation of virulence factors. Hence, our study investigates the two-component systems (TCSs) among A. actinomycetemcomitans strains of varying virulence levels. Among the groups of highly and mildly virulent strains that were studied, we found there to be significant differences in the ygiX/ygiY TCS. In the most virulent …  Read more

Motion sickness (MS) is always unpleasant but seldom dangerous for a passenger in a car or on a boat. However, space motion sickness (SMS) could be hazardous for an entire crew if an astronaut experiences severe symptoms while rapid and precise manoeuvres have to be performed. Thus, there is a need for a reliable predictive test, an effective pre-adaptation method or a fully acceptable treatment. Unfortunately, none of these exist at this time. In part, this is because so little is known about the mechanisms underlying MS. There have been numerous attempts to predict who will develop SMS and to …  Read more

Activin and TGFbeta, members of the TGFbeta superfamily, are pluripotent cytokines that are expressed in virtually every cell of the body. These factors play diverse roles in the body such as regulating early development of the embryo, differentiation, extracellular matrix formation, hematopoiesis, angiogenesis and immune functions. TGFbeta superfamily signaling is transduced by heteromeric serine/threonine kinase receptors at the cell surface and the intracellular mediator, the Smad complex. Following activation of the receptors, there is recruitment and phosphorylation the Smads. As a result the Smad proteins accumulate in the nucleus, bind co-activators or repressors and elicit or suppress transcription of target …  Read more

Male reproductive health is of growing concern, as male toxicant exposure can affect progeny outcome; sperm chromatin structure integrity may be a contributing factor. The formation of mature sperm involves the expression of numerous proteins involved in organizing and packaging the chromatin in a specific manner; this ensures transmission and participation of the paternal genome in embryogenesis. Exposure of male rats to cyclophosphamide as spermatid chromatin is remodeled has an adverse effect on embryo development. The hypothesis of this thesis is that cyclophosphamide exposure causes genetic damage and alters the sperm proteome, thus disrupting components of chromatin condensation and organization …  Read more

Access to markets is increasingly regarded in development circles as a critical factor in determining livelihood choices in peasant economies. In the northeastern Peruvian Amazon, a multitude of river transporters and market intermediaries based in the central city of Iquitos provide essential services and market opportunities for remote peasant producers across the region. Using a multi-scalar, multi-method approach involving extensive fieldwork in the Peruvian Amazon, this research (re)assesses the meanings and implications of "remoteness" and "connectedness" for rural peasants. At the regional scale, I examine the functional heterogeneity of river trading networks and marketing agents. Given the high-risk/high-transaction-cost environment, river …  Read more

Capture-recapture methods are used to estimate population size from overlapping, incomplete sources of information. With three or more sources, dependence between sources may be modelled using log-linear models. We propose a Coefficient of Incremental Dependence Criterion (CIDC) for selecting an estimate of population size among all possible estimates that result from hierarchical log-linear models. A penalty for the number of parameters in the model was selected via simulation for the three-source and four-source settings. The performance of the proposed criterion was compared to the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) through simulation. The CIDC was found to modestly outperform the AIC for …  Read more

La présente thèse adopte une approche comparative à la fois pour analyser l'article 1782 de l'U.S.C. 28 et pour souligner les problèmes qui surviennent lorsque cette loi est comparée à ses pendants des pays régis par la common law. Le Canada et l'Angleterre se sont imposés en tant que pays comparables puisque ces derniers sont régis par la common law, procèdent à des enquêtes préalables, disposent de lois sur l'entraide judiciaire et d'une jurisprudence détaillée faisant état des problèmes qui y sont liés. Aussi, l'emploi d'une méthode comparative a permis de révéler les principales lacunes de l'article 1782, soit ses …  Read more

Malaria is one of the most serious human infectious diseases. To date, the collection of studies suggest that the disease is determined by transmission dynamics and host age altogether with host genetics and immunological responses. The precise and direct contribution of parasite components to the activation of such immunological responses has not been fully unravelled. In addition to a role proposed for plasmodial GPI, different lines of evidence suggest that hemozoin (HZ) could also be a potential inflammatory agent. The role of HZ in the modulation of immune responses has remained a polemic subject, making it difficult to describe the …  Read more

Bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis (BIPF) is a disease caused by the chemotherapeutic bleomycin in which normal lung tissue is replaced with fibrous tissue that is unable to fulfill the normal functions of oxygen exchange in the lung. The development of this disease is dictated, in part, by a set of genes governing susceptibility. Knowledge of such genetic modifiers offers novel therapeutic targets and improved understanding of the pathways involved in the disease process. Our method integrates different data types to identify genes that have a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) disrupting a transcription factor binding site that modifies the outcome of BIPF. …  Read more

Epilepsy is a common and heterogeneous neurological disorder affecting approximately 1.0% of the general population. In up to 65% of cases, the etiology could not be demonstrated (idiopathic). Based on familial aggregation and twin studies, genetic factors are believed to play an important role in idiopathic epilepsies. Recently, familial forms of epilepsies have been identified, and mutations in specific genes predisposing to these rare forms of monogenic epilepsies were uncovered. In this thesis, identification of mutations in three different genes is described, including a D188V mutation in the alpha1 subunit of the voltage-gated sodium channel (SCN1A) associated with generalized epilepsy …  Read more

Review and analysis of current clinical research practice suggests a general trend towards excluding pregnant women from clinical research studies. Although exclusionary research practices are premised upon concerns for the well-being of the fetus and the pregnant women, such practices can also produce various inadvertent harms to both parties. In particular, exclusion of pregnant women from clinical research limits the quality of care provided to pregnant women by impeding individual access to innovative research protocols and by limiting data collection applicable to the pregnant population. A review and analysis of relevant historical, legal, ethical, clinical, scientific and political documents suggests …  Read more

This research project is the second part of a research program carried out by Itagawa (2005) who studied the seismic response of a half-scale model of an existing Montreal bridge built in the 1960's. This project studies the seismic behaviour of the retrofit carried out on the frame structure studied in the first part of the research program. The retrofit was made following the requirements of the current Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code (CHBDC). The philosophy of the CHBDC is to provide flexural yielding in the ductile elements so that brittle failure modes such as shear are prevented. This capacity-design …  Read more

Dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) neurons projects to widespread areas throughout the brain and are involved in many physiological functions and neuropsychiatric disorders. In particular, DRN serotonin (5-HT) neurons are thought to be implicated in major depressive disorder (MDD) as are steroid hormones. Therefore, the aim of this thesis was to assess the effects of some neurosteroids on DRN neurons in non-anaesthetized rats. Initially, we examined electrophysiological properties of dorsal raphe cells across the sleep---wake cycle in non-anaethetized rats. In this first study we characterized six distinct neuronal populations in the DRN based on spike waveform and firing pattern. We then …  Read more

Des structures formées de couches minces métalliques et céramiques sont couramment utilisées dans la conception de microsystèmes électromécaniques (MEMS). Ces derniers se retrouvent dans plusieurs domaines, tels que les capteurs, les vidéoprojecteurs et les systèmes de génération d'énergie portable. Pour concevoir des MEMS fiables, les propriétés mécaniques de ces couches minces doivent êtres connues précisément. Le but de cette thèse est d'utiliser la méthode de nanoindentation pour déterminer les propriétés mécaniques des couches minces de carbure de silicium Hexoloy-SG. Ce matériel à été développé pour des microsystèmes opérant dans des conditions thermiques et chimiques extrêmes. La nanoindentation a été réalisée …  Read more

Sarkar, Mekhala (Internal/Supervisor)  Read more

Extreme rainfall events may have catastrophic impacts on the population and infrastructures, therefore it is essential to have accurate knowledge of extreme rainfall characteristics. Moreover, both the scientific community and policymakers have recently shown a growing interest in the potential impacts of climate change on water resources management. Indeed, changes in the intensity and frequency of occurrence of extreme rainfall events may have serious impacts. As such, it is important to understand not only the current patterns of extreme rainfalls but also how they are likely to change in the future. The objective of the present research is therefore to …  Read more

No safe and effective vaccine exists against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the main viral cause of lower respiratory tract infections in young children. Proteosome-based adjuvants, derived from the outer membrane proteins (OMP) of Neisseria species are potent inducers of mucosal and systemic immunity in humans and animals. RSV subunit vaccines based on enriched RSV proteins (eRSV) were formulated with proteosomes (Pro) or its S. flexneri LPS-supplemented derivative, Protollin (Prl). Administered intranasally (IN) in BALB/c mice, the vaccines elicited systemic and mucosal RSV-specific antibodies and fully protected against RSV challenge without enhanced pulmonary pathology or evidence of a Th2-biased response (eg: …  Read more

While providing non-invasive tissue detection, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) presently possesses limited sensitivity for protein target recognition. This limitation was addressed for the target beta-galactosidase (beta-gal) by constructing three beta-gal-specific MRI probes. The probes are based on a bipartite design in which a vasoactive moiety known as a diazeniumdiolate (NONOate) is bound to a specifier, specifically galactose. Upon galactose' interaction with beta-gal, the NONOate is cleaved from galactose, and actively generates nitric oxide (NO). The released NO leads to microvascular permeability changes in surrounding tissues affecting localized T1 measurements. These changes serve as a quantitative index of beta-gal detection. The …  Read more

The active form of vitamin D, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25D), is a key calcium (Ca++) regulatory hormone. It is also associated with functions unrelated to Ca++ homeostasis. Here, special attention is paid towards the anticancer properties of 1,25D. 1,25D strongly inhibits the growth of well-differentiated head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) derived cell lines. However, advanced, less differentiated, HNSCC cell lines (e.g. SCC4) are partially resistant to 1,25D. Resistance to nuclear receptor (NR) agonists is a common event that occurs in other NR-related treatments. For example, some leukemias develop resistance to the usually effective retinoic acid (RA) treatment. However, treating …  Read more

In the present study, dilute alloys in the Mg-rich corner of the Mg-Ce-In ternary system in the composition range 0 to 3% In and 0 to 1.5% Ce were synthesized. Cooling curve analysis was used to determine the liquidus points in order to construct the liquidus surface of the ternary phase diagram in the Mg corner. Energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), wavelength dispersive spectroscopy (WDS), and x-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques were used to examine phases present at the compositions studied. A thermal arrest presumed to represent a eutectic transformation was discovered at 580°C. Two new intermetallic compounds, designated tau and theta, …  Read more

Decisions made in Youth Protection cases are influenced by many different factors that have been outlined in previous research. Assessment tools, definitions of risk and the overarching cultural milieu intermingle to inform the decision-making process and, ultimately the final decision. This research seeks to explore the factors that affect the decision-making process and is intended to build on previous research. By qualitatively analyzing the transcripts from actual decision-making meetings, and talking to the participants about their experiences within the research it was shown that the decision-making process is a complicated one. The roles of the participants within the organization along …  Read more