The influence of Susanna Wesley on the life and character of her son John Wesley

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

Estimation of adult skeletal age-at-death using the Sugeno fuzzy integral

The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file.Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on July 7, 2009)Thesis (M.A.) University of Missouri-Columbia 2008.Age-at-death estimation of an individual skeleton is important to forensic and biological anthropologists for identification and demographic analysis, but it has been shown that current aging methods are often unreliable because of skeletal variation and taphonomic factors. Due to this, it seems necessary to explore different ways to account for this inherent inaccuracy in the aging methods to produce better results when determining age-at-death. Multifactorial methods have been shown to produce better results when determining age-at-death than single indicator methods. However, multifactoral methods are difficult to use for single skeletons and they rarely provide the investigator with information about the reliability of the estimate. The goal of this research is to examine the validity of the Sugeno fuzzy integral for modeling age-at-death of an individual skeleton. The Sugeno fuzzy integral is an information fusion technique that can handle uncertainty that is inherent in the aging methods. Since the age determination methods are not intended to be a rigid set of typological standards but rather describe modal age changes, uncertainty is inherent in skeletal age determination. The Sugeno fuzzy integral allows the use of as many age indicators available, the condition of the skeleton, and the accuracy of the skeletal age indicators to produce a more informed decision of age-at-death in an adult skeleton. This method is described and examples are presented using three commonly used aging methods on a known-age skeletal sample from the Terry Collection. The Sugeno integral uses multiple sources and types of information, does not require the use of a population, and produces graphical results.Includes bibliographical reference

Effect of spin orbit scattering on the magnetic and superconducting properties of nearly ferromagnetic metals: application to granular Pt

We calculate the effect of scattering on the static, exchange enhanced, spin susceptibility and show that in particular spin orbit scattering leads to a reduction of the giant moments and spin glass freezing temperature due to dilute magnetic impurities. The harmful spin fluctuation contribution to the intra-grain pairing interaction is strongly reduced opening the way for BCS superconductivity. We are thus able to explain the superconducting and magnetic properties recently observed in granular Pt as due to scattering effects in single small grains.Comment: 9 pages 3 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Letter

Impact of disorder on unconventional superconductors with competing ground states

Non-magnetic impurities are known as strong pair breakers in superconductors with pure d-wave pairing symmetry. Here we discuss d-wave states under the combined influence of impurities and competing instabilities, such as pairing in a secondary channel as well as lattice symmetry breaking. Using the self-consistent T-matrix formalism, we show that disorder can strongly modify the competition between different pairing states. For a d-wave superconductor in the presence of a subdominant local attraction, Anderson's theorem implies that disorder always generates an s-wave component in the gap at sufficiently low temperature, even if a pure d_{x^2-y^2} order parameter characterizes the clean system. In contrast, disorder is always detrimental to an additional d_{xy} component. This qualitative difference suggests that disorder can be used to discriminate among different mixed-gap structures in high-temperature superconductors. We also investigate superconducting phases with lattice symmetry breaking in the form of bond order, and show that the addition of impurities quickly leads to the restoration of translation invariance. Our results highlight the importance of controlling disorder for the observation of competing order parameters in cuprates.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure

Harnessing Nature’s Diversity: Discovering organophosphate bioscavenger characteristics among low molecular weight proteins

Organophosphate poisoning can occur from exposure to agricultural pesticides or chemical weapons. This exposure inhibits acetylcholinesterase resulting in increased acetylcholine levels within the synaptic cleft causing loss of muscle control, seizures, and death. Mitigating the effects of organophosphates in our bodies is critical and yet an unsolved challenge. Here, we present a computational strategy that integrates structure mining and modeling approaches, using which we identify novel candidates capable of interacting with a serine hydrolase probe (with equilibrium binding constants ranging from 4 to 120 μM). One candidate Smu. 1393c catalyzes the hydrolysis of the organophosphate omethoate (kcat/Km of (2.0 ± 1.3) × 10−1 M−1s−1) and paraoxon (kcat/Km of (4.6 ± 0.8) × 103 M−1s−1), V- and G-agent analogs respectively. In addition, Smu. 1393c protects acetylcholinesterase activity from being inhibited by two organophosphate simulants. We demonstrate that the utilized approach is an efficient and highly-extendable framework for the development of prophylactic therapeutics against organophosphate poisoning and other important targets. Our findings further suggest currently unknown molecular evolutionary rules governing natural diversity of the protein universe, which make it capable of recognizing previously unseen ligands

The Modular Group, Operator Ordering, and Time in (2+1)-Dimensional Gravity

A choice of time-slicing in classical general relativity permits the construction of time-dependent wave functions in the ``frozen time'' Chern-Simons formulation of $(2+1)$-dimensional quantum gravity. Because of operator ordering ambiguities, however, these wave functions are not unique. It is shown that when space has the topology of a torus, suitable operator orderings give rise to wave functions that transform under the modular group as automorphic functions of arbitrary weights, with dynamics determined by the corresponding Maass Laplacians on moduli space.Comment: 8 pages, LaTe

On the mechanism of polaritonic rate suppression from quantum transition paths

Polariton chemistry holds promise for facilitating mode-selective chemical reactions, but the underlying mechanism behind the rate modifications observed under vibrational strong coupling is not well understood. Using the recently developed quantum transition path theory, we have uncovered a mechanism of resonant suppression of a thermal reaction rate in a simple model polaritonic system, consisting of a reactive mode in a bath confined to a lossless microcavity with a single photon mode. This mechanism was uncovered by resolving the quantum dynamical reactive pathways and identifying their rate limiting transitions. Upon inspecting the wavefunctions associated with the rate limiting transition, we observed the formation of a polariton and identified the concomitant rate suppression as due to hybridization between the reactive mode and the cavity mode, which inhibits bath-mediated tunneling during the reaction. The transition probabilities that define the quantum master equation can be directly translated into a visualisation of the corresponding polariton energy landscape. This landscape exhibits a double funnel structure, with a large barrier between the initial and final states. This mechanism of resonant rate suppression is found to be robust to model parameters and computational details, and thus expected to be general.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, comments welcome; small clarifications added, typos corrected, and references update

Topology Change and Causal Continuity

The result that, for a scalar quantum field propagating on a ``trousers'' topology in 1+1 dimensions, the crotch singularity is a source for an infinite burst of energy has been used to argue against the occurrence of topology change in quantum gravity. We draw attention to a conjecture due to Sorkin that it may be the particular type of topology change involved in the trousers transition that is problematic and that other topology changes may not cause the same difficulties. The conjecture links the singular behaviour to the existence of ``causal discontinuities'' in the spacetime and relies on a classification of topology changes using Morse theory. We investigate various topology changing transitions, including the pair production of black holes and of topological geons, in the light of these ideas.Comment: Latex, 28 pages, 10 figures, small changes in text (one figure removed), conclusions remain unchanged. Accepted for publication in Physical Review

Detection of low-frequency tones and whale predator sounds by the American sand lance Ammodytes americanus

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2012. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of John Wiley & Sons for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Fish Biology 81 (2012): 1646-1664, doi:10.1111/j.1095-8649.2012.03423.x.Auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) were used to measure the hearing range and auditory sensitivity of the American sand lance Ammodytes americanus. Responses to amplitude modulated tone pips indicated that the hearing range extended from 50 to 400 Hz. Sound pressure thresholds were lowest between 200 and 400 Hz. Particle acceleration thresholds showed an improved sensitivity notch at 200 Hz but not substantial differences between frequencies and only a slight improvement in hearing abilities at lower frequencies. The hearing range was similar to Pacific sand lance A. personatus and variations between species may be due to differences in threshold evaluation methods. AEPs were also recorded in response to pulsed sounds simulating humpback whale Megaptera novaeangliae foraging vocalizations termed ‘megapclicks’. Responses were generated with pulses containing significant energy below 400 Hz. No responses were recorded using pulses with peak energy above 400 Hz. These results show that A. americanus can detect the particle motion component of low frequency tones and pulse sounds, including those similar to the low frequency components of megapclicks. Ammodytes americanus hearing may be used to detect environmental cues and the pulsed signals of mysticete predators.We also thank the Mountlake Research Fund, the Provost’s Fund for Senior Thesis Research and the Horton Elmer Fund, all of which provided the support for this study through Princeton University. A. Mooney was supported through a Woods Hole Postdoctoral Scholar award and the Andrew W. Mellon Fund for Innovative Research.2014-09-0