Synthesis and Charecterisation of Methylene Blue Derivatives

Since its discovery, the fluorescent dye known as methylene blue has been employed in a variety of scientific disciplines. Methylene blue (MB) for intraoperative fluorescence imaging has only lately been employed. 10-N-carbamoyl linkage modification of Methylene blue helps us in developing compounds with off-to-on fluorescence switch in the presence of near infrared (NIR). Due to its naturally induced photodamage to normal tissues and deeper penetration of lesion regions when compared to UV and visible light, near infrared (NIR) light is considered favorable among the broad radiation range. The previously synthesized derivatives are not completely soluble in water, they require other co-solvents, acetone etc. So in this study branched polyethyleneimine which is a water soluble polymer is used to conjugate with methylene blue to effect the 10-N-Carbamoyl linkage. The branched structure of polyethyleneimine has several primary amines, so the amount of methylene blue that can be conjugated can also be varied. The carbamoyl linkage with methylene blue is also sensitive to hydroxyl radical. Using this hypothesis the activity was verified using hemoproteins such as hemoglobin. Subsequently this property can be used in the lysis of the malaria parasite. MB and PEI conjugate was synthesized and tested in vitro for the cleavage of the 10-N-Carbamoyl linkage. As the result, PEI-conjugated MB successfully demonstrated the cleavage and also sensitivity to ROS-induce cleavage to release intact MB

ASSESSMENT OF POTENTIAL SITE SELECTION METHODS FOR USE IN PRIORITIZING SAFETY IMPROVEMENTS ON GEORGIA ROADWAYS

With over 40,000 people continuing to die on US roads each year, the US government has heightened the awareness of critical safety issues with the passage of SAFETEA - LU legislation in 2005. The plan requires each of the states to develop a Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) and incorporate data-driven approaches to prioritize and evaluate program outcomes; else federal funds will be redirected. Seeking to meet the new demands for data-driven approaches, many states are struggling to identify data collection/maintenance requirements for satisfying new approaches to highway safety analysis. Recent research has shown that selecting projects on the basis of crash frequencies and rates are misleading due to selection bias (such as greater emphasis on traffic volume and cash severity etc) and Regression-to-mean phenomena. There are several safety analysis techniques that are preferred over traditional rates and frequencies. These include level of service of safety, empirical bayes method using SafetyAnalyst software techniques. While all the above mentioned methods are macroscopic (giving a bigger picture of the complete road), microscopic analysis could be done using the Interactive Highway Safety Design Model (IHSDM). IHSDM is a set of software analysis tools developed by Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to evaluate safety on two lane rural highways. This research aims at assessing the usability, data requirements, data availability and expertise required by different techniques that are deemed appropriate for safety analysis in Georgia. To streamline and reduce the scope of work, Cobb County was chosen as the analysis county because it had been used in a prior development effort and was expected to have the best level of completion and accuracy in the state. The procedure of using the state-of-the-art analytical tools is considered as the most comprehensive safety analysis method. Cobb County data set will be used to test the applicability of the four analysis methods: crash frequency, crash rate, critical crash rate and level of service of safety (LOSS). The results from various ranking criteria (crash frequency, crash rate, critical crash rate and LOSS) will be compared to the actual available crash data and enhanced SafetyAnalyst data. SafetyAnalyst uses the Safety Performance Functions generated for northern states and it calibrated to Georgia data. SPFs applicable to Georgia data (generated from Cobb County) are compared to the non-calibrated and calibrated SPFs used in SafetyAnalyst. Analysis of costs and potential benefit of using various network screening methods is carried out to weigh the capabilities and limitations of various ranking methods

case study

A poem about the Mainland in BC

DEVELOPMENT OF GUIDANCE FOR STATES TRANSITIONING TO NEW SAFETY ANALYSIS TOOLS

With about 125 people dying on US roads each day, the US Department of Transportation heightened the awareness of critical safety issues with the passage of SAFETEA - LU (Safe Accountable Flexible Efficient Transportation Equity Act - a Legacy for Users) legislation in 2005. The legislation required each of the states to develop a Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) and incorporate data-driven approaches to prioritize and evaluate program outcomes: Failure to do so resulted in funding sanctioning. In conjunction with the legislation, research efforts have also been progressing toward the development of new safety analysis tools such as IHSDM (Interactive Highway Safety Design Model), SafetyAnalyst and HSM (Highway Safety Manual). These software and analysis tools are comparatively more advanced in statistical theory and level of accuracy, and have a tendency to be more data intensive. A review of the 2009 five-percent reports and excerpts from the nationwide survey revealed astonishing facts about the continuing use of traditional methods including crash frequencies and rates for site selection and prioritization. The intense data requirements and statistical complexity of advanced safety tools are considered as a hindrance to their adoption. In this context, this research aims at identifying the data requirements and data availability for SafetyAnalyst and HSM by working with both the tools. This research sets the stage for working with the Empirical Bayes approach by highlighting some of the biases and issues associated with the traditional methods of selecting projects such as greater emphasis on traffic volume and regression-to-mean phenomena. Further, the not-so-obvious issue with shorter segment lengths, which effect the results independent of the methods used, is also discussed. The more reliable and statistically acceptable Empirical Bayes methodology requires safety performance functions (SPFs), regression equations predicting the relation between crashes and exposure for a subset of roadway network. These SPFs, specific to a region and the analysis period are often unavailable. Calibration of already existing default national SPFs to the state\u27s data could be a feasible solution, but, how well the state\u27s data is represented is a legitimate question. With this background, SPFs were generated for various classifications of segments in Georgia and compared against the national default SPFs used in SafetyAnalyst calibrated to Georgia data. Dwelling deeper into the development of SPFs, the influence of actual and estimated traffic data on the fit of the equations is also studied questioning the accuracy and reliability of traffic estimations. In addition to SafetyAnalyst, HSM aims at performing quantitative safety analysis. Applying HSM methodology to two-way two-lane rural roads, the effect of using multiple CMFs (Crash Modification Factors) is studied. Lastly, data requirements, methodology, constraints, and results are compared between SafetyAnalyst and HSM

winter portrait

A poem about Vancouver, BC

Data Mining Framework for Monitoring Attacks In Power Systems

Vast deployment of Wide Area Measurement Systems (WAMS) has facilitated in increased understanding and intelligent management of the current complex power systems. Phasor Measurement Units (PMU\u27s), being the integral part of WAMS transmit high quality system information to the control centers every second. With the North American Synchro Phasor Initiative (NAPSI), the number of PMUs deployed across the system has been growing rapidly. With this increase in the number of PMU units, the amount of data accumulated is also growing in a tremendous manner. This increase in the data necessitates the use of sophisticated data processing, data reduction, data analysis and data mining techniques. WAMS is also closely associated with the information and communication technologies that are capable of implementing intelligent protection and control actions in order to improve the reliability and efficiency of the existing power systems. Along with the myriad of advantages that these measurements systems, informational and communication technologies bring, they also lead to a close synergy between heterogeneous physical and cyber components which unlocked access points for easy cyber intrusions. This easy access has resulted in various cyber attacks on control equipment consequently increasing the vulnerability of the power systems.;This research proposes a data mining based methodology that is capable of identifying attacks in the system using the real time data. The proposed methodology employs an online clustering technique to monitor only limited number of measuring units (PMU\u27s) deployed across the system. Two different classification algorithms are implemented to detect the occurrence of attacks along with its location. This research also proposes a methodology to differentiate physical attacks with malicious data attacks and declare attack severity and criticality. The proposed methodology is implemented on IEEE 24 Bus reliability Test System using data generated for attacks at different locations, under different system topologies and operating conditions. Different cross validation studies are performed to determine all the user defined variables involved in data mining studies. The performance of the proposed methodology is completely analyzed and results are demonstrated. Finally the strengths and limitations of the proposed approach are discussed

Contesting the role of social movements in post-apartheid South Africa: the Treatment Action Campaign

This article contests the role of social actors within a democratic context by looking at post-apartheid social movements in general and the case study of the Treatment Action Campaign in particular. By illustrating the structure, activities, goals and accomplishments of the Treatment Action Campaign up until the end of 2006, this work will argue that it represents an innovation in social movements in South Africa via its unique strategies and networks that have transformed the issue of HIV/AIDS from a health and service delivery problem, to a political and economic struggle that affects all people. The comparison between primary research conducted in the TAC National Office and interviewing other civil society actors with secondary material on social movements and the South African environment demonstrates that there is often a gap between theory and practice. Further the debate surrounding the ‘naming’ of social movements in South Africa raises questions around the accuracy of the terminology used to describe such groups and organizations which aim towards social transformation via a variety of approaches and techniques. It argues that the use of social movement theory according to Porta and Diani (1999) and others is essential in analyzing the characteristics of a social movement but not adequate

Light touch based virtual cane for balance assistance during standing

Can additional information about one\u27s body kinematics provided through hands improve human balance? Light-Touch (LT) through hands helps improve balance in a wide range of populations, both healthy and impaired. The force is too small to provide any meaningful mechanical assistance -- rather, it is suggested that the additional sensory information through hands helps the body improve balance. To investigate the potential for improving human balance through biofeedback through hands, we developed a Virtual Cane (VC) for balance assistance during standing. The VC mimics the physical cane\u27s function of providing information about one\u27s body in space. Balance experiments on 10 healthy young adults are conducted, where the evidence of improved standing balance with VC is collected and analyzed in terms of both, medio-lateral & anterior-posterior accelerations of the trunk. The results showed that VC improved balance in both X & Y directions as compared to no cane and in some cases, balance improvement was almost as good as physical cane condition. This shows that standing balance can be improved by even a simple binary information on one\u27s hand position with respect to the ground. This work furthers the concept of biofeedback from using virtual devices for balance assistance - using virtual LT through hands. Specifically, this work investigates a novel case where information that otherwise cannot be provided by any of the sensory organs (i.e., accurate distance from one\u27s hand to an external object), improves human standing balance. This research will propagate and give a boost to inspect and analyze similar or supplementary improvement effects during walking --Abstract, page iii

MULTIPLE CHANNEL COHERENT AMPLITUDE MODULATED (AM) TIME DIVISION MULTIPLEXING (TDM) SOFTWARE DEFINED RADIO (SDR) RECEIVER

It is often required in communication and navigation systems to be able to receive signals from multiple stations simultaneously. A common practice to do this is to use multiple hardware resources; a different set of resources for each station. In this thesis, a Coherent Amplitude Modulated (AM) receiver system was developed based on Software Defined Radio (SDR) technology enabling reception of multiple signals using hardware resources needed only for one station. The receiver system architecture employs Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) to share the single hardware resource among multiple streams of data. The architecture is designed so that it can be minimally modified to support any number of stations. The Verilog Hardware Description Language (HDL) was used to capture the receiver system architecture and design. The design and architecture are initially validated using HDL post-synthesis and post-implementation simulation. In addition, the receiver system architecture and design were implemented to a Xilinx Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology prototyping board for experimental testing and final validation