Gastric aspiration, epithelial injury and chronic lung allograft rejection

Introduction For patients with a variety of end stage lung diseases, lung transplantation has become an effective therapy. Chronic allograft rejection occurs in over 50% of patients 5 years post transplantation however. Although alloimmune-mediated injury directed against endothelial and epithelial structures were traditionally thought to be the major culprit, non-alloimmunologic inflammation after bile acid aspiration has been implicated in cystic fibrosis (CF) lung injury, after transplantation. Hypothesis Reflux with aspiration of bile acid is present in the lower airways of people with cystic fibrosis associated lung injury before and after transplantation. Bile acid challenge would cause cytoxicity and release of inflammatory mediators from patient derived primary epithelial cells (PBECs), before and after transplantation. Methods PBECs from lung transplantation patients, explanted CF patient cultures and a goblet cell line were used to perform proof of concept experiments. In these experiments the effect of individual primary and secondary bile acids, porcine pepsin, different patient derived gastric juices (whole or filtered and dialysed) samples and an artificial bile acid mixture were evaluated. Cell death, Interleukin 8 (IL-8), Interleukin 6 (IL-6) and Granulocyte Macrophage Colony Stumulating Factor (GMCSF) production were measured by Titer blue and multiplex ELISA. Results Epithelial cells can be cultured successfully from the bronchial brushings of lung transplant recipient, CF patient explanted lungs and a Goblet cell line. In work connected with this study my research group has demonstrated that the lungs of people with advanced CF lung disease removed at the time of transplantation contained significant levels of bile acids higher than expected based on normal serum levels. I therefore tested the effects of bile acids on PBECs from lung transplant and CF patients. Challengesof ≥10mol/l was associated with significant cell death. Potentially physiological challenges with 1, 5 and 10 mol/l bile acids led to a significant release of pro-neutrophilic cytokines from lung transplant PBECs and CF PBECs .The goblet cell line HT-29 MTX was resistant to bile acids. Conclusion Aspiration of bile acids in CF lungs before and after transplantation may cause cell damage and inflammation. This injury may benefit from medical and surgical treatments for reflux, which may benefit the lung allograft generally.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Coexistence and conviviality in multi-faith, multi-ethnic Burgazadasi, the princes' islands of Istanbul

This thesis aims to provide an understanding of the existing cultural plurality and diversity in Burgazadası, within a post-Ottoman and homogenising context in Turkey. Most of the scholars working on conflict resolution and peace projects in the Balkans and the Middle East have attempted to analyse cultural plurality with the concept of “coexistence”. “Coexistence” as a concept presupposes the pre-existing categories of ethnicity, class and religion (i.e. coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians; Greek and Turkish Cypriots; Serbs, Croats and Bosnians). In this thesis, I demonstrate the inadequacy of the concept of “coexistence” and propose a “conviviality” approach to explore cultural pluralism. In the post-Ottoman, Turkish context in Burgaz, “coexistence” can be used when describing the homogenisation process, the construction and perception of categorisations of differences, the crystallisation of ethnic and religious identities and ruptures to cultural pluralism; but it is deficient in describing the continuity of cultural pluralism and what is shared between the members of the community in Burgaz. By contrast, “conviviality” provides an understanding of the continuity of cultural pluralism in Burgaz, the changes in sociality patterns, shared ways of living, the diversity and differentiations within “different groups”, the islanders' sense of belonging in Burgaz, their appreciation of diversity and acts of solidarity at the times of crisis. I argue that the homogenisation process in Turkey brought ruptures in cultural pluralism in Turkey, and changed the demographics in Burgaz; however the homogenisation process did not rupture the conviviality on the island and Burgazian identity which embraces all types of diversities of its inhabitants. At times of crisis, like in September 1955 riots, Burgaz islanders emphasised their shared Burgaz identity which overrode religious, class and ethnic differencesEThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Understanding the complex organisational processes that help and hinder creativity and innovation

This study looks at the topics of creativity and innovation and how they are experienced as ordinary, everyday work. In business publications there is much hype and hope around the words “creativity” and “innovation”, but there is also a limited understanding of how creativity and innovation are enacted in organisations. Consequently, academics have stressed the need for ‘opening the black box’ of the firm and understanding how innovation really works (Birdi et al, 2003). This research uses the Complex Responsive Processes approach to understand the ordinary, everyday experiences of people involved in work which was novel for the organisations concerned. I selected three organisational cases from the health and education sectors. I selected these because, in each case, people were working on complex challenges which had no single, obvious solution and which required the generation and development of new and useful ideas. The research makes a novel contribution to knowledge in three ways. First, it has been unusual in that it has extended the application of complex responsive processes to understand the processes which impact on creativity and innovation in the health and education sectors. While complex responsive processes thinking has been applied to these sectors before, to my knowledge, this is the first time it has been applied to understand processes impacting on creativity and innovation in these sectors. Second, this research finds a pattern of dynamics between trust and a paradoxical concept of diversity, comprising both sufficient difference and sufficient common-ground between organizational members. In this research, trust was a necessary foundation for the exploration of ideas. However, for risks to be taken and ideas to be implemented, in contexts of high uncertainty and risk, trust alone was insufficient. The quality of conversational life flourished where both trust and diversity were present. Finally, this research makes a methodological contribution through using Stacey’s five areas for focusing attention as a conceptual framework. The use of this framework helps provide a depth of compelling detail and insights which would not have been obtained through traditional lenses from the domains of creativity and innovation. This is the first time this framework for focusing attention has been applied in this way to understanding creativity and innovation in empirical settings.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Scalable Synthesis of Few-Layered 2D Tungsten Diselenide (2H-WSe2) Nanosheets Directly Grown on Tungsten (W) Foil Using Ambient-Pressure Chemical Vapor Deposition for Reversible Li-Ion Storage

We report a facile two-furnace APCVD synthesis of 2H-WSe2. A systematic study of the process parameters is performed to show the formation of the phase-pure material. Extensive characterization of the bulk and exfoliated material confirm that 2H-WSe2 is layered (i.e., 2D). X-ray diffraction (XRD) confirms the phase, while high-resolution scanning electron microscopy (HRSEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM) clarify the morphology of the material. Focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM) estimates the depth of the 2H-WSe2 formed on W foil to be around 5-8 μm, and Raman/UV-vis measurements prove the quality of the exfoliated 2H-WSe2. Studies on the redox processes of lithium-ion batteries (LiBs) show an increase in capacity up to 500 cycles. On prolonged cycling, the discharge capacity up to the 50th cycle at 250 mA/g of the material shows a stable value of 550 mAh/g. These observations indicate that exfoliated 2H-WSe2 has promising applications as an LiB electrode material

Lattice measurements in metallic nanoparticles by means of HRTEM images

Comunicazione orale FIS-OR-0

ATIRS package: A program suite for the rovibrational analysis of infrared spectra of asymmetric top molecules

Nowadays high-resolution infrared spectra can be recorded quite easily and therefore it has become important to assist the rovibrational analysis, especially the assignment step, that is still fraught with many problems in the presence of perturbation effects. In this article we provide a description of ATIRS, a complete software suite developed for assisting in the rotational investigation of vibrational bands of asymmetric top molecules. This package uses the Pickett\u2019s CALPGM suite for fitting transitions and predicting line positions and is composed by three stand-alone applications: (1) Visual Loomis\u2013Wood for the assignment of spectral lines based on Loomis\u2013Wood type diagrams; (2) Visual CALPGM, a new graphical interface to Pickett\u2019s programs SPFIT and SPCAT; (3) Visual Spectra Simulator for the simulation of spectra. The graphical interface to the CALPGM suite is developed for asymmetric rotors. The main feature of this application is to avoid the use of the parameter codes that are here replaced employing the well known parameter names or symbols. Highlighting the regular transition sequences, Visual Loomis\u2013Wood assists in the assignment of the spectral lines. It visualizes the description of a transition and the assignment can be simply done by mouse-clicking on the diagram; moreover its display mode feature lets to check the experimental spectrum in which all the assigned lines together with their description are reported. Visual Spectra Simulator provides a simple and functionally application that, using the calculated frequencies and intensities given by SPCAT, simulates the high-resolution infrared spectrum and compare it to the experimental one. ATIRS, freely available to the spectroscopic community, is designed to be easy to use and presents a standard graphical interface; being based on the CALPGM package it can handle forbidden transitions and perturbations among many states

Applications of random graphs to 2D quantum gravity

The central topic of this thesis is two dimensional Quantum Gravity and its properties. The term Quantum Gravity itself is ambiguous as there are many proposals for its correct formulation and none of them have been verified experimentally. In this thesis we consider a number of closely related approaches to two dimensional quantum gravity that share the property that they may be formulated in terms of random graphs. In one such approach known as Causal Dynamical Triangulations, numerical computations suggest an interesting phenomenon in which the effective spacetime dimension is reduced in t he UV. In this thesis we first address whether such a dynamical reduction in the number of dimensions may be understood in a simplified model. vVe introduce a continuum limit where t his simplified model exhibits a reduction in the effective dimension of spacetime in the UV, in addition to having rich cross-over behaviour. In the second part of this thesis we consider an approach closely related to causal dynamical triangu lation; namely dynamical triangulation. Although this theory is less well-behaved than causal dynamical triangulation) it is known how to couple it to matter) t herefore allowing for potentially multiple boundary states to appear in the theory. We address t he conjecture of Seiberg and Shih which states that all these boundary states are degenerate and may be constructed from a single principal boundary state. By use of the random graph formulation of the theory we compute the higher genus amplitudes with a single boundary and find that they violate the Seiberg-Shih conjecture. Finally we discuss whether this result prevents the replacement of boundary states by local operators as proposed by Seiberg.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

The most stable isomer of H2C4-(OCS)2 van der Waals complex: Theory and experiment agree on a structure with C2 symmetry

We report the infrared spectrum of H$_2$C$_4$-(OCS)$_2$ trimer in the region of the nu1 fundamental vibration of the OCS monomer. The van der Waals complexes are generated in a supersonic slit-jet apparatus and probed using a rapid-scan tunable diode laser. Both H$_2$C$_4$-(OCS)$_2$ and D$_2$C$_4$-(OCS)$_2$ are studied. Analysis of their spectra establishes that the trimer has C$_2$ point group symmetry. Theoretical calculations performed to find stationary points on the potential energy surface confirm that the observed structure is the most stable form. The experimental rotational parameters are in very good agreement with those computed using double hybrid functionals.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figure