Exploring Neuro-Immune Interaction in Chronic Migraine

From the Washington University Office of Undergraduate Research Digest (WUURD), Vol. 13, 05-01-2018. Published by the Office of Undergraduate Research. Joy Zalis Kiefer, Director of Undergraduate Research and Associate Dean in the College of Arts & Sciences; Lindsey Paunovich, Editor; Helen Human, Programs Manager and Assistant Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences Mentor(s): Yuqin Ca

Unsaturated Nitriles: Stereoselective Annulations and Alkylations

N-metallated nitriles are fundamental intermediate that have been used to generate new C-C bonds for over a century. C-metallated nitriles are new but equally important intermediates in being able to deliver complementary stereoselectivity. C-magnesiated nitriles are directly generated from chelation-controlled conjugated addition and can successfully furnish complete stereocontrol during installation of three new stereocenters (Section II-1). The recent development of chiral organometallics has identified a remarkable series of electrophile-dependent alkylations that are significantly impacting organic synthesis. C-magnesiated nitriles from chelation-controlled conjugated addition are chiral nucleophiles that alkylate an array of electrophiles with retentive or invertive alkylation depending on the electrophiles. Specifically, alkyl halides and most carbonyl electrophiles afford one stereoisomer with the stereochemical assignments being confirmed by X-ray diffraction (Section II-2). Multi-component reactions rapidly assemble complex targets. Sequential 1, 2 addition and chelation-controlled conjugate addition to oxonitriles efficiently generates highly substituted cyclic nitriles. ω-Haloalkyl Grignards trigger the same sequence with intramolecular alkylation to afford octalins, hydrindanes and decalins ideally suited for terpanoid synthesis. A complementary multicoponent addition-Friedel-Crafts alkylation has been employed for the total synthesis of epi-dehydroabietic acid (Section II-3). The exchange of á-halonitriles with i-PrMgBr directly generates C-magnesiated nitriles. The rapid exchange allows in situ alkylations with aldehyde, ketone and acyl cyanide electrophiles without prior Grignard addition (Section II-4). Furthermore the exchange uses rapid equilibration allowing the diastereoselective alkylation of diastereomeric á-bromonitriles

Willingness to use online food delivery platforms: Before and during COVID-19

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Statistics and Information Management, specialization in Marketing Research and CRMBackground: Since a quarantine was implemented to prevent the spread of COVID-19, online food delivery companies such as UberEats, MeiTuan, and others have garnered more attention. Given the paucity of studies on the willingness and barriers to using online food delivery in general, the current study evaluated the period prior to and during the pandemic using a quantitative manner. Purpose: To begin, this research identifies the aspects of food delivery services people appreciate most, in addition to convenience and cost savings. Second, sanitary concerns, fear of COVID-19, and social isolation concerns were identified as the primary obstacles to service use. Design & Approach: The methodology of this paper is through a designed questionnaire to investigate the motivation of using online-delivery food platforms, followed by the statistical analysis methods to determine the real effects. Afterward, the dissertation implemented descriptions Statistics, sample test, One-way Anova, and frequency distribution to identify the hypothesizes whether they will be supported regarding the requesting, the last step is to conduct the resulting insight from the data. Findings: Most people who have been researched agree that food orders increase due to fear and social isolation during the COVID-19 period, indicating that the hypothesis is valid. The projected beneficial effect of hygienic issues does not materialize, and there is no statistically significant change in hygiene issues associated with online food delivery before and after the pandemic. The data show the attitude of persons with various incomes to pay more for delivery fees is not statistically significant. The results confirmed that users are younger people who are either employed or self-employed. With the emergence of COVID-19, young people's ordering patterns indicate a greater likelihood of using the suggested service. Limitation: A typical concern is that a convenience sample may not be representative of the population. Future research could look into the impact of new online food delivery developments in different countries and post-COVID-19. The food delivery industry is rapidly expanding. Research is required to develop goods that travel well and keep food quality

Unstable Galaxy Models

The dynamics of collisionless galaxy can be described by the Vlasov-Poisson system. By the Jean's theorem, all the spherically symmetric steady galaxy models are given by a distribution of {\Phi}(E,L), where E is the particle energy and L the angular momentum. In a celebrated Doremus-Feix-Baumann Theorem, the galaxy model {\Phi}(E,L) is stable if the distribution {\Phi} is monotonically decreasing with respect to the particle energy E. On the other hand, the stability of {\Phi}(E,L) remains largely open otherwise. Based on a recent abstract instability criterion of Guo-Lin, we constuct examples of unstable galaxy models of f(E,L) and f(E) in which f fails to be monotone in E

Bone in vivo: Surface mapping technique

Bone surface mapping technique is proposed on the bases of two kinds of uniqueness of bone in vivo, (i) magnitude of the principal moments of inertia, (ii) the direction cosines of principal axes of inertia relative to inertia reference frame. We choose the principal axes of inertia as the bone coordinate system axes. The geographical marks such as the prime meridian of the bone in vivo are defined and methods such as tomographic reconstruction and boundary development are employed so that the surface of bone in vivo can be mapped. Experimental results show that the surface mapping technique can both reflect the shape and help study the surface changes of bone in vivo. The prospect of such research into the surface shape and changing laws of organ, tissue or cell will be promising.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure