Modeling and analysis of a class of linear reluctance actuators for advanced precision motion systems

Reluctance actuators (RA) are a type of electromagnetic actuator that offer high forces for short range motions. The RA takes advantage of the electromagnetic reluctance force property in air gaps between the stator core and mover parts. The mover accelerates because the stator generates the magnetic flux that produces an attractive magnetic attraction between the stator and mover. Hysteresis and other non-linearities in the magnetic flux have an impact on the force and have a nonlinear gap dependency. It is demonstrated that the RA has the capacity to produce a force that is effective and suitable for millimeter-range high-acceleration applications. One application for the RA is the short-stroke stage of photolithography machines for example. The RA is available in a wide variety of configurations, such as CCore, E-Core, Maxwell, and Plunger-type designs. The RA requires precise dynamic models and control algorithms to help linearize the RA for better control and optimization. Some nonlinear dynamics include magnetic hysteresis, flux fringing, and eddy currents. The RA is shown to have a much higher force density than any other traditional actuator, with the main disadvantage being the nonlinear and hysteretic behaviour which makes it hard to control without proper dynamic and control models in place. It is important to model the RA accurately for better control. The output force can be significantly impacted by unequal offsets or asymmetries between the mover and stator. In the thesis that follows, a review of RA systems is performed, an investigation that shows the importance of including the mean path length (MPL) term for higher accuracy, a technique for calculating the force of various asymmetrical instances for the C-core RA is demonstrated. This thesis documents currently available knowledge of the RA such as available applications, configurations, dynamic models, measurement systems, and control systems for the RA. The findings presented can allow for future control systems to be designed to counteract multi-axial asymmetric issues of the RA

Towards map-based cloning of Fusarium head blight resistance QTL Fhb1 and non-additive expression of homoeologous genes in allohexaploid wheat

Doctor of PhilosophyDepartment of Plant PathologyBikram S. GillWheat is the most widely grown and consumed grain crop in the world. In order to meet future agricultural production requirements of a growing population, it is essential that we achieve an increased understanding of the basic components and mechanisms shaping growth and productivity of the polyploid wheat plant. Fusarium head blight (FHB) (syn. "scab") poses a serious threat to the quantity and safety of the world's food supply. The resistance locus Fhb1 has provided partial resistance to FHB of wheat for nearly four decades. Map-based cloning of Fhb1 is justified by its significant and consistent effects on reducing disease levels, the importance of FHB in global wheat production and food safety, and because this gene confers partial resistance to this disease and does not appear to behave in a gene-for-gene manner. A bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) contig spanning the Fhb1 region was developed from the cultivar 'Chinese Spring', sequenced and seven candidate genes were identified in an ~250 kb region. Cosmid clones for each of the seven candidate genes were isolated from a line containing Fhb1 and used for genetic transformation by biolistic bombardment. Transgenic lines were recovered for five candidate genes and evaluated for FHB resistance. All failed to complement the Fhb1 phenotype. Fhb1 is possibly one of the two remaining candidate genes, an unknown regulatory element in this region, or is not present in Chinese Spring. Traditional views on the effects of polyploidy in allohexaploid wheat have primarily emphasized aspects of coding sequence variation and the enhanced potential to acquire new gene functions through mutation of redundant loci. At the same time, the extent and significance of regulatory variation has been relatively unexplored. Recent investigations have suggested that differential expression of homoeologous transcripts, or subfunctionalization, is common in natural bread wheat. In order to establish a timeline for such regulatory changes and estimate the frequency of non-additive expression of homoeologous transcripts in newly formed T. aestivum, gene expression was characterized in a synthetic T. aestivum line and its T. turgidum and Aegilops tauschii parents by cDNA-SSCP and microarray expression experiments. The cDNA-SSCP analysis of 30 arbitrarily selected homoeologous transcripts revealed that four (~13%) showed differential expression of homoeoalleles in seedling leaf tissue of synthetic T. aestivum. In microarray expression experiments, synthetic T. aestivum gene expression was compared to mid-parent expression level estimates calculated from parental expression levels. Approximately 16% of genes were inferred to display non-additive expression in synthetic T. aestivum. Six homoeologous transcripts classified as non-additively expressed in microarray experiments were characterized by cDNA-SSCP. Expression patterns of these six transcripts suggest that cis-acting regulatory variation is often responsible for non-additive gene expression levels. These results demonstrate that allopolyploidization, per se, results in rapid initiation of differential expression of homoeologous loci and non-additive gene expression in synthetic T. aestivum

Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) observations of biomass burning products in the stratosphere from Canadian forest fires in August 2017

Forest fires in British Columbia in August 2017 caused a pyrocumulonimbus event that injected a polluted air mass into the lower stratosphere. The Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) on the Aura satellite first observed the polluted air mass on 14 August 2017 and continued to observe it for 60 d (100 d in water vapour). We estimate the mass of CO injected into the stratosphere to be 2400 Gg. Events in which a fire injects its burning products directly into the stratosphere are rare: this is the third of four such events in the 16 years since the launch of Aura, the second largest of the four events, and the only one in the Northern Hemisphere. The other three events occurred in Australia in December 2006, February 2009 and from December 2019 to January 2020. Unlike the 2006 and 2009 events, but like the 2019–2020 event, the polluted air mass described here had a clearly elevated water vapour content: between 2.5 and 5 times greater than that in the surrounding atmosphere. We describe the evolution of the polluted air mass, showing that it rose to an altitude of about 24 km (31 hPa) and divided into several identifiable parts. In addition to CO and H2O, we observe enhanced amounts of HCN, CH3CN, CH3Cl and CH3OH with mixing ratios in the range to be expected from a variety of measurements in other biomass burning plumes. We use back trajectories and plume-dispersion modelling to demonstrate that the pollutants observed by MLS originated in the British Columbia fires, the likeliest source being at 53.2∘ N, 121.8∘ W at 05:20 UTC on 13 August 2017.</p

HLA class I-redirected anti-tumour CD4+T-cells require a higher TCR binding affinity for optimal activity than CD8+T-cells

CD4+ T helper cells are a valuable component of the immune response towards cancer. Unfortunately, natural tumour-specific CD4+ T-cells occur in low frequency, express relatively low affinity T-cell receptors (TCRs) and show poor reactivity towards cognate antigen. In addition, the lack of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class II expression on most cancers dictates that these cells are often unable to respond to tumour cells directly. These deficiencies can be overcome by transducing primary CD4+ T-cells with tumour-specific HLA class I-restricted TCRs prior to adoptive transfer. The lack of help from the coreceptor CD8 glycoprotein in CD4+ cells might result in these cells requiring a different optimal TCR binding affinity. Here we compared primary CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells expressing wildtype and a range of affinity-enhanced TCRs specific for the HLA A*0201-restricted NY-ESO-1- and gp100 tumour antigens. Our major findings are: (i) redirected primary CD4+ T-cells expressing TCRs of sufficiently high affinity exhibit a wide range of effector functions, including cytotoxicity, in response to cognate peptide; and, (ii) optimal TCR binding affinity is higher in CD4+ T-cells than CD8+ T-cells. These results indicate that the CD4+ T-cell component of current adoptive therapies using TCRs optimised for CD8+ T-cells is below par and that there is room for substantial improvement. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Processing EOS MLS Level-2 Data

A computer program performs level-2 processing of thermal-microwave-radiance data from observations of the limb of the Earth by the Earth Observing System (EOS) Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS). The purpose of the processing is to estimate the composition and temperature of the atmosphere versus altitude from .8 to .90 km. "Level-2" as used here is a specialists f term signifying both vertical profiles of geophysical parameters along the measurement track of the instrument and processing performed by this or other software to generate such profiles. Designed to be flexible, the program is controlled via a configuration file that defines all aspects of processing, including contents of state and measurement vectors, configurations of forward models, measurement and calibration data to be read, and the manner of inverting the models to obtain the desired estimates. The program can operate in a parallel form in which one instance of the program acts a master, coordinating the work of multiple slave instances on a cluster of computers, each slave operating on a portion of the data. Optionally, the configuration file can be made to instruct the software to produce files of simulated radiances based on state vectors formed from sets of geophysical data-product files taken as input

Reading Graphic Novels in School: texts, contexts and the interpretive work of critical reading

This paper uses the example of an extra-curricular Graphic Novel Reading Group in order to explore the institutional critical reading practices that take place in English classrooms in the senior years of secondary school. Drawing on Stanley Fish's theory of interpretive communities, it questions the restrictive interpretive strategies applied to literary texts in curriculum English. By looking closely at the interpretive strategies pupils apply to a different kind of text (graphic novels) in an alternative context (an extra-curricular space) the paper suggests that there may be other ways of engaging with text that pupils find less alienating, more pleasurable and less reminiscent of 'work'

Evaluation of the Potential for Genomic Selection to Improve Spring Wheat Resistance to Fusarium Head Blight in the Pacific Northwest

Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) has emerged in spring wheat production in Pacific Northwest during the last decade due to factors including climate changes, crop rotations, and tillage practices. A breeding population with 170 spring wheat lines was established and screened over a 2-year period in multiple locations for FHB incidence (INC), severity (SEV), and deposition of the mycotoxin, deoxynivalenol (DON). A genome-wide association study suggested that the detectable number of genetic loci and effects are limited for marker-assisted selection. In conjunction with the success of breeding on FHB resistance in other programs, genomic selection (GS) was suggested as a better option. To evaluate the prediction accuracy of GS in the current breeding population, we conducted a variety of validations by varying proportions of testing populations and cohorts based on both FHB resistance and market class, including soft white spring (SWS), hard white spring (HWS), and hard red spring (HRS). We found that INC had higher heritability, higher correlation across years and locations, and higher prediction accuracy than SEV and DON. Prediction accuracy varied among the scenarios that restricted the testing population to a certain cohort. For a small set of newly developed or introduced lines (&lt;17), prediction accuracy will be about 60% if the lines have similar genetic relationships as those among the current 170-line training population. However, we expect a lower prediction accuracy if new lines are selected for a specific characteristic, such as FHB resistance or market class. With the exception of DON in the SWS lines, the current training population is capable of making reasonably accurate predictions for FHB-resistant lines in most of the major market classes. For SWS, adding more lines or further phenotyping is required to improve prediction accuracy. These results demonstrate the potential and challenges of GS, especially for developing FHB-resistant varieties in the SWS market class

Using Time-Resolved Fluorescence to Measure Serum Venom-Specific IgE and IgG

We adapted DELFIA™ (dissociation-enhanced lanthanide fluoroimmunoassay), a time resolved fluorescence method, to quantitate whole venom specific and allergenic peptide-specific IgE (sIgE), sIgG1 and sIgG4 in serum from people clinically allergic to Australian native ant venoms, of which the predominant cause of allergy is jack jumper ant venom (JJAV). Intra-assay CV was 6.3% and inter-assay CV was 13.7% for JJAV sIgE. DELFIA and Phadia CAP JJAV sIgE results correlated well and had similar sensitivity and specificity for the detection of JJAV sIgE against intradermal skin testing as the gold standard. DELFIA was easily adapted for detecting sIgE to a panel of other native ant venoms

Perspectives on Anaphylaxis Epidemiology in the United States with New Data and Analyses

Anaphylaxis incidence rates and time trends in the United States have been reported using different data sources and selection methods. Larger studies using diagnostic coding have inherent limitations in sensitivity and specificity. In contrast, smaller studies using chart reviews, including reports from single institutions, have better case characterization but suffer from reduced external validity due to their restricted nature. Increasing anaphylaxis hospitalization rates since the 1990s have been reported abroad. However, we report no significant overall increase in the United States. There have been several reports of increasing anaphylaxis rates in northern populations in the United States, especially in younger people, lending support to the suggestion that higher anaphylaxis rates occur at higher latitudes. We analyzed anaphylaxis hospitalization rates in comparably sized northern (New York) and southern (Florida) states and found significant time trend differences based on age. This suggests that the relationship of latitude to anaphylaxis incidence is complex