Boston College Environmental Center Summer Institute on Surtsey and Iceland

Studying geology, geochemistry, and biology of Iceland and Surtsey as examples of new and extreme environment

Low noise frequency combs and their use in broadly tunable lasers and optical coherence tomography

Frequency combs revolutionized the world of laser physics by providing a link between the microwave and optical domains. Such a link allows for precise knowledge of any comb line’s absolute average location, as well as the average spacing between any two comb lines. Here, we exploit this knowledge for a variety of applications, and study the limits thereof. Combs from a variety of sources are studied, and in all cases, low noise and/or highly mutually coherent tones can be readily produced which are useful in a variety of contexts.More specifically, the phase/frequency noise of comb tones is inves- tigated, along with the mutual coherence between two comb lines. In addition, the relative intensity noise of a full comb spectra and of individual comb lines is also investigated.The low phase/frequency noise of individual comb lines as produced in electro-optic and in normal dispersion photonic molecules is used for the generation of highly tunable and low noise laser sources, and the high mutual coherence and precise repetition rate of an anomalous dispersion microresonator combs is used for optical coherence tomography

Donal Skehan

Donal Skehan is a 25 year old home cook, food writer and Television presenter who has written three cookbooks, Good Mood Food (Mercier Press, 2009), Kitchen Hero: Bringing Cooking Back Home (Harper Collins, 2011), and Kitchen Hero: Great Food For Less (Harper Collins 2012). Donal has presented two 14 part, prime time Irish television cookery programs which have been sold to the UK, France and Brazil and his books have been translated to both German and Swedish. Donal’s ethos on cooking is that all his recipes should be accessible, inspiring and encouraging for the everyday home cook. He has been cooking from the age of four when he flipped his first pancake and has been in the kitchen ever since! Inspired by a family of passionate foodies, his parents run a food production company, and cooking and eating hearty home cooked food has always been a way of life. Donal is also an accomplished food photographer and his photography skills have been put to good use as he photographs all his own food images for his blog and books

Dual Comb Spectrometry of Solid Samples

L’objectif de ce mémoire est de partager les connaissances obtenues lors de mon travail sur la spectroscopie à deux peignes et ses applications sur les matériaux solides. Pour y parvenir, certain sujets connexes sont élaborés. Dans l’ordre, on y aborde la physique des lasers, le verrouillage et la stabilisation des modes, l’interférométrie générale et celle des peignes, ainsi que la modification des impulsions des peignes de fréquence en utilisant l’ptique non-linéaires. On présente ensuite deux études expérimentales. La première porte sur la combinaison de la spectroscopie à deux peignes avec la technique pompe-sonde et la seconde sur l’analyse de la variance baseline en contexte de la spectroscopie à deux peignes.The goal of this memoire is to communicate my work regarding the application of dual comb spectroscopy to materials beyond traditional gas phase spectroscopy. A variety of topics required to understand my work are presented, such as general laser physics, mode-locking, stabilization of the repetition rate and carrier envelope offset, interferometry, dual comb spectroscopy, and the modification of said combs via non-linear optics. Two experimental studies are presented as well. These include the combination of dual comb spectroscopy with the pump-probe technique, as well as an analysis of baseline variance incontext of dual comb spectroscopy

Dual Comb Spectrometry of Solid Samples

L’objectif de ce mémoire est de partager les connaissances obtenues lors de mon travail sur la spectroscopie à deux peignes et ses applications sur les matériaux solides. Pour y parvenir, certain sujets connexes sont élaborés. Dans l’ordre, on y aborde la physique des lasers, le verrouillage et la stabilisation des modes, l’interférométrie générale et celle des peignes, ainsi que la modification des impulsions des peignes de fréquence en utilisant l’ptique non-linéaires. On présente ensuite deux études expérimentales. La première porte sur la combinaison de la spectroscopie à deux peignes avec la technique pompe-sonde et la seconde sur l’analyse de la variance baseline en contexte de la spectroscopie à deux peignes.The goal of this memoire is to communicate my work regarding the application of dual comb spectroscopy to materials beyond traditional gas phase spectroscopy. A variety of topics required to understand my work are presented, such as general laser physics, mode-locking, stabilization of the repetition rate and carrier envelope offset, interferometry, dual comb spectroscopy, and the modification of said combs via non-linear optics. Two experimental studies are presented as well. These include the combination of dual comb spectroscopy with the pump-probe technique, as well as an analysis of baseline variance incontext of dual comb spectroscopy

Dealing with the data deluge in high throughput screening

Numerical taxonomy and pattern recognition analysis offer powerful tools that can greatly reduce the information burden of multiple-assay screening programs. These methods can be used to rationally design prescreens, identify assays that have similar chemical response patterns, select reporter assays for chemical response groups, evaluate drug selectivity, and predict a drug's likely mechanism of action. When combined with assays designed to identify lead compounds that have characteristics likely to cause failure at a later and more expensive stage of development, a simple three-stage primary discovery process consisting of a rational prescreen, reporters, and clinical failure assay can reduce the number of required culture wells by more than 20-fold and can eliminate all but 1–2 drugs per 1000 tested as leads for further evaluation and development

Metalinguistic Knowledge and Language Ability in University-Level L2 Learners

Existing research indicates that instructed learners' L2 proficiency and their metalinguistic knowledge are moderately correlated. However, the operationalization of the construct of metalinguistic knowledge has varied somewhat across studies. Metalinguistic knowledge has typically been operationalized as learners' ability to correct, describe, and explain L2 errors. More recently, this operationalization has been extended to additionally include learners' L1 language-analytic ability as measured by tests traditionally used to assess components of language learning aptitude. This article reports on a study which employed a narrowly focused measure of L2 proficiency and incorporated L2 language-analytic ability into a measure of metalinguistic knowledge. It was found that the linguistic and metalinguistic knowledge of advanced university-level L1 English learners of L2 German correlated strongly. Moreover, the outcome of a principal components analysis suggests that learners' ability to correct, describe, and explain highlighted L2 errors and their L2 language-analytic ability may constitute components of the same construct. The theoretical implications of these findings for the concept of metalinguistic knowledge in L2 learning are considered. © Oxford University Press 2007

Functional Elements of EspF\u3csub\u3eu\u3c/sub\u3e, an Enterohemorrhagic \u3cem\u3eE. coli\u3c/em\u3e Effector that Stimulates Actin Assembly: A Dissertation

Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 (EHEC) is an attaching and effacing pathogen that upon attachment to host cells, induce characteristic attaching and effacing lesions and formation of F-actin rich pedestals beneath sites of bacterial attachment. EHEC harbors a Type III secretion system through which it delivers dozens of effectors into the host cell. The two secreted effectors critical for EHEC-mediated actin pedestal formation are the translocated intimin receptor (Tir) and EspFU. EspFU consists of an N-terminal secretion signal and a C-terminus containing six tandem 47-residue proline-rich repeats, each of which can bind and activate the actin nucleation promoting factor N-WASP. Structural and functional analyses described here have identified the mechanism of N-WASP activation by EspFU and the minimal domains and specific residues required for this activity. While EspFU and Tir are the only bacterial effectors required for F-actin pedestal formation, recruitment of EspFU to Tir is mediated by an unidentified putative host factor. To identify the host factor responsible for linking these two effectors, a combination of in vitro and functional assays were used to identify the host factor, IRTKS and the residues required for these interactions were defined. Further, the presence of at least two 47-residue repeats in all characterized clinical isolates of canonical EHEC strains led us to address the minimal requirements for EspFU functional domains to promote recruitment to Tir and N-WASP activation. Here we show that two proline-rich elements of EspFU are required for recruitment of EspFU by IRTKS to sites of bacterial attachment. Furthermore, once artificially clustered at the membrane, a single N-WASP binding element of EspFU can induce actin pedestal formation

Establishing the Fluency Gap Between Native and Non-Native-Speech

Although various dimensions of speech fluency have so far generated a great deal of research interest, very few accounts have tackled the issue of the relationship between L1 and L2 fluency. Also, little empirical evidence has been provided to support the claim that language users are more fluent in their mother tongue than in a foreign/second language. This study examines the fluency gap between L1 and L2 fluency using a battery of objectively quantifiable temporal measures of speed and breakdown fluency. It also attempts to identify those temporal fluency variables which are affected by the individual way of speaking rather than the degree of automatisation of speech processing and which underlie oral performance both in L1 and L2. The analysis draws on transcriptions of elicited speech samples in L1 (Polish) and L2 (English)

Stratigraphic and Structural Problems of the Southern Part of the Green Mountain Anticlinorium, Bennington-Wilmington, Vermont

Guidebook for field trips in Vermont: 64th annual meeting October 13, 14, 15, 1972 Burlington, Vermont: Trip B-1