Prenatal Genetic Testing: An overview of history, advancements, and impacts on health care

The purpose of this research is to study prenatal genetic testing and the advancements that have been made since the human genome project has made the testing process simpler and less invasive. Prenatal genetic testing is a screen or a test that is performed in order to determine if an embryo or fetus has a certain disease or condition before its birth. A variety of different prenatal tests and screens have been studied to evaluate what genetic conditions are screened for and when. The scope of this paper focuses on the historical overview, advancements, patients, tests, and impacts related to prenatal genetic testing. Some questions are presented in the beginning of this paper in order to fully describe and understand prenatal genetic testing and the benefits and issues relating to it. Conclusion: Prenatal genetic testing and screening is available for many diseases, but the typical test screens for only a select number of diseases and conditions.Kayla SiddellHonors DiplomaHonors CollegeCunningham Memorial Library, Terre Haute, Indiana State UniversityUndergraduateTitle from document title page. Document formatted into pages: 20

Volume bounds for generalized twisted torus links

Twisted torus knots and links are given by twisting adjacent strands of a torus link. They are geometrically simple and contain many examples of the smallest volume hyperbolic knots. Many are also Lorenz links. We study the geometry of twisted torus links and related generalizations. We determine upper bounds on their hyperbolic volumes that depend only on the number of strands being twisted. We exhibit a family of twisted torus knots for which this upper bound is sharp, and another family with volumes approaching infinity. Consequently, we show there exist twisted torus knots with arbitrarily large braid index and yet bounded volume.Comment: Revised version to appear in Mathematical Research Letters. 21 pages, 14 figure

Modélisation et conception d’une machine synchro-réluctante assistée d’aimants permanents intégrant les contraintes du pilotage sans capteur de position

Cette thèse est dédiée à la modélisation analytique et à la conception optimale d’une machine du type synchro-réluctante assistée d'aimants permanents (MSRAP) en tenant compte des aspects liés au pilotage sans capteur de position. Dans un premier temps, la thèse vise à montrer, à partir d’une étude bibliographique, les avantages économiques et la sûreté de fonctionnement d’un pilotage sans capteur de position. Les méthodes d'injection de signaux à haute fréquence sont les plus adaptées pour des fonctionnements à basse vitesse en raison de leur facilité de mise en oeuvre. Cependant elles dépendent fortement des paramètres de la machine tels que le rapport de saillance incrémentale. Dans des applications dédiées au secteur de la manutention qui se caractérise par des sur-couples importants au démarrage, l’injection de signaux haute fréquence devient non-opérationnelle en raison du faible rapport de saillance incrémentale induit par une forte saturation de la machine. L'objectif est d’intégrer ce problème lors de la phase de conception de la machine. La géométrie du rotor des moteurs MSRAP est complexe car elle dépend d’un nombre de paramètres importants tels que la position, le nombre et la forme des barrières de flux. C'est pourquoi une analyse basée sur des simulations par éléments finis est réalisée afin d'identifier les paramètres géométriques les plus influents sur les performances et le rapport de saillance incrémentale. Cette étude permettra d’évaluer la sensibilité de paramètres tels que le nombre de barrières et l’entrefer dont la variation peut dégrader le rapport de saillance et en même temps améliorer les performances de la machine. D'autres paramètres comme l'inclinaison des barrières sont bénéfiques pour la performance et pour le pilotage sans capteur de position. Afin de concevoir la machine à l'aide d'algorithmes d'optimisation, il est indispensable de développer des modèles précis et rapides. Les optimisations basées sur des modèle éléments finis sont certes précises mais aussi très consommatrices en temps de calcul. Nous proposons dans cette étude de développer un modèle basé sur des équations analytiques en utilisant les principes de la loi d'Ampère et de la conservation du flux. Afin d'obtenir la distribution spatiale de l'induction dans l'entrefer, entité de base pour le calcul des performances et des inductances incrémentales du moteur, un système d’équations est mis en place et résolu. Ces moteurs étant par ailleurs généralement alimentés par des onduleurs, un second modèle analytique est développé afin de déterminer le contenu harmonique des courants d’alimentation. Dans une première optimisation du couple nominal de la MSRAP, deux logiciels basés sur des algorithmes déterministes ont été testés : fmincon de Matlab et NOMAD. Nous avons pu noter la supériorité des résultats et la robustesse du logiciel NOMAD par rapport à fmincon pour la résolution d'un problème avec 18 variables et 15 contraintes complexes. NOMAD a donc été utilisé pour deux autres optimisations bi-objectifs incluant le rendement et le coût des matières premières, et où le couple, la tension, le facteur de puissance et le rapport de saillance incrémentale sont définis comme des contraintes. Chaque modèle analytique ainsi que les gains obtenus dans le cadre de cette thèse sont validés par des simulations éléments finis, des simulations sous Simulink Matlab et par des essais expérimentaux avec une machine existante

Risk-based qualification of X-ray sterilization for single-use systems

The urgent need for life-saving therapies as a result of the global pandemic has reinforced the criticality of flexibility in pharmaceutical manufacturing, including sterilization. The single-use bioprocess industry traditionally has employed gamma irradiation sterilization. X-ray irradiation warrants consideration as an alternate sterilization technology. X-ray irradiation offers better penetration characteristics, improved dose uniformity ratio (DUR), and less environmental impact when compared to other sterilization modalities. We will share a risk based qualification testing strategy including Extractables and data generated to support comparability of gamma irradiation and X-ray irradiation as equivalent ionizing irradiation sterilization modalities

Linking mesoscale landscape heterogeneity and biodiversity: gardens and tree cover significantly modify flower-visiting beetle communities

Context Maintaining biodiversity in multifunction landscapes is a significant challenge. Planning for the impacts of change requires knowledge of how species respond to landscape heterogeneity. Some insect groups are known to respond to heterogeneity at the mesoscale, defined here as hundreds of metres. However, for many taxa these effects are poorly known. Objectives To identify key elements of mesoscale landscape heterogeneity influencing community composition in flower-visiting beetles, and whether landscape explains any variation in beetle communities beyond that driven by immediate habitat cover. Methods Flower-visiting beetles were sampled from 36 transects, laid out using a 6 km2 grid located in southern Britain. Landscape heterogeneity was measured for 30 and 200 m buffers around the transects and the relative response of beetle communities to each assessed using ordination analyses followed by variation partitioning. Results The composition of immediately adjacent habitat (30 m) and mesoscale landscape heterogeneity (200 m) explained unique portions of the variation in flower-visiting beetle communities. A number of species, including those affiliated with deadwood habitats, were positively linked to tree cover in the surrounding mesoscale landscape. Gardens covered a smaller area than trees but modified beetle communities to the same extent. Conclusions The local abundance of some flower-visiting beetles is modified by the composition of the surrounding landscape. Results highlight the importance of tree cover for maintaining insect biodiversity in agricultural landscapes, while suggesting that gardens associated with small urban areas may have a disproportionate influence on biodiversity

Fashioning the Self: Performance, Identity and Difference

This thesis project will examine cultural and rhetorical communication studies to determine how these modes of analysis can be compared with interdisciplinary literature to better understand the role fashion plays within everyday performances and the shaping of identity. Criticisms by second-wave feminist scholars have focused on the fashion industry\u27s overarching male influence; in more recent scholarship, feminist academics have often considered an affinity for fashion to be un-feminist and oppressive. I argue that fashion can instead be viewed as a tool for female agency and expressing individuality, rather than just a mode for reinforcing gendered norms. Using feminist rhetorical analysis and visual content analysis, this project examines imagery found on three popular fashion blogs to a determine how fashion is viewed by scholars, especially as a communicative tool in relation to identity, as well as how an interdisciplinary approach enriches the study of fashion and communication

#FashioningIdentity and #PerformingAuthenticity: Communicative, Relational, and Affective Labor in the Digital Frontier of Fashion and Lifestyle Blogging

Fashion and lifestyle blogs serves as a new cultural space, where bloggers are viewed as influencers and set cultural, societal standards of an ideal womanhood. Female bloggers\u27 various forms of labor - specifically, communicative, relational, and affective - establish a blogger\u27s role in social and economic life and reiterate the significance of consumerism as a hallmark of femininity. Fashion and lifestyle bloggers are typically women, whose labor sustains the fashion and lifestyle blogging ecosystem. This occurs through consistent, branded communication; cultivating connections and relationships with followers and fellow bloggers; and transference of affect across digital divides, in real time, through platforms such as Instagram. These processes perpetuate the cycle of consumption through a framework of fulfilling one\u27s duty as both a woman and a citizen. This project examines fashion and lifestyle blogs and their authors through performance-based interviewing and thematic narrative analysis in order to turn a critical eye to blog websites and social media platforms. The dissertation unpacks the cultural scripts and communicative performances that emerge within (im)material blog spaces and the ways in which bloggers enact particular subjectivities in Web 2.0 culture; the labor performances of bloggers; and the implication of blog and social media imagery on blog followers. Constant connectivity and access to digital space encourages consistent subject performances bound to neoliberal, capitalist culture, turning blog and social media spaces into powerful, communicative, Web 2.0 structures

Ventral extra-striate cortical areas are required for human visual texture segmentation

A patient (HJA) with bilateral occipital lobe damage to ventral cortical areas V2, V3 and V4 was tested on a texture segmentation task involving texture bar detection in an array of oriented lines. Performance detecting a target shape was assessed as the orientations of the background lines had increasing orientation noise. Control participants found the task easier when the background lines had the same orientation or only slightly shifted in orientation. HJA was poor with all backgrounds but particularly so when the background lines had the same or almost the same orientations. The results suggest that V1 alone is not sufficient to perform easy texture segmentation, even when the background of the display is a homogeneous texture. Ventral extra-striate cortical areas are needed in order to detect texture boundaries. We suggest that extra-striate visual areas enhance the borders between the target and background, while also playing a role in reducing the signal from homogeneous texture backgrounds