Provencal baptisteries : Early Christian origins and medieval afterlife (France)

Laos, Nora Edith Princeton University 2002 해외박사

e Trunking: Minimizing Network Energy Consumption through Management of VLAN Trunk Links

Dizon, Rod Lester Lao 인제대학교 대학원 2013 국내석사

Network energy saving is an important initiative that focus on reducing the energy consumption of the network while maintaining the performance and capacity of the system. This is done through the implementation of a combination of one or more techniques that involve hardware, software, or network management. This paper is an effort to further the research on energy saving focusing largely on a network management approach to minimize energy consumption through the use of the concepts of virtual local area networks (VLANs) and spanning tree protocol (STP). As a management approach to substantially improve the energy savings capabilities of a network the proper identification of relevant path aggregation during energy saving mode need to be determined. Path aggregation is performed by considering the commonality in available VLAN trunk links within the scope of the network domain. Specifically, this paper covers an energy saving mode algorithm that will select the switches or nodes having most of the VLAN that pass through those nodes. Then perform a convergence of these nodes through the available shortest path. This then provides the alternative energy saving path having fewer switches that need to be active. In addition to this a discussion on the swapping algorithm between normal operation and energy saving mode provides the necessary control mechanisms needed to ensure correct changeover between modes.

Biology of Melittobia acasta: a destructive parasitoid of Bombus terrestris in bombiculture : 땅뒤영벌의 기생벌인 Melittobia acasta 의 생태

Inn, Nang Soi Lao 경북대학교 대학원 2006 국내석사

Development of Catalytic Processes for the Transformation of Low Value Chemical Feedstocks to Value Added Chemicals

Lao, David B University of Washington 2013 해외박사(DDOD)

Dwindling oil reserves have necessitated the shift to alternative sources for fuels and commodity chemicals. This thesis describes fundamental studies and development of catalytic processes for the transformation of abundant, low value chemical resources into value added chemicals. Chapter 1 of this work gives a brief overview of the motivation, challenges, prior work for the catalytic conversion of methane to methanol, methane to ethane and higher alkanes, and glycerol to 1,3-propanediol. Chapter 2 describes efforts to study the kinetics of methanol oxidation by aqueous sodium periodate. The presence of methane pressure in these reactions hinders the rate of methanol oxidation. These fundamental studies may provide novel strategies to prevent the over-oxidation of methane in gas-to-liquid conversion chemistry. The effect of methane pressure, ionic strength effects, and pH dependence on reaction kinetics was studied, but was complicated by the precipitation and thermal decomposition of sodium periodate. In addition, oxidation of cyclopropyl carbinol was studied to determine the mechanism of periodate oxidation. The lack of ring opening products mitigated against a radical chain mechanism. Chapter 3 discusses attempts to develop a complete catalytic cycle for methyl and aryl coupling using Pt and Pd complexes. These studies introduce potential new strategies for the utilization of methane as a chemical feedstock and catalytic aryl coupling. The formation of biphenyl from monophenyl-PdII complexes was demonstrated. Attempts to achieve base assisted methane activation with a series of Pt complexes were complicated by ligand incompatibility with bases. Finally, Chapter 4 details the development of a homogeneous iridium pincer catalyst for the catalytic deoxygenation of glycerol, a waste stream from biodiesel production, to 1,3-propanediol and 1-propanol. The tandem catalytic sequence with acid catalyzed dehydration followed by metal catalyzed hydrogenation is a rare example of a homogeneous system that yields 1,3-propanediol from glycerol, albeit in lower yields than 1-propanol. Mechanistic studies suggest that an iridium dihydrogen hydride complex may be the active catalyst in these reactions.

Ethnic identity development in multi-ethnic people of color: Perceived parental influence, experience, and meaning-making

Lao-Arthur, Tania E New York University 2011 해외박사(DDOD)

The primary purpose of this study was to capture a more profound understanding of the term ethnicity by elucidating the process of ethnic identity development for the multi-ethnic person of color. Many studies over the last 20 to 30 years have examined ethnicity by isolating, and determining the effects of, various components of the construct. Very few studies have focused on personal experiences related to ethnic identity and its development as a locus for a deeper understanding of term ethnicity. This study focuses on individual experiences and understanding of the process of ethnic identity development - that is, how ethnic identity unfolds over time, as a product of social influences, and within social contexts. The clarification of this developmental process took place through an inquiry into the lived experiences of the participants with a focus on how they understand their ethnicity and ethnic identity as influenced by their parents or family and external social forces. These experiences, which include earliest memories to present day, were recounted through the participants' stories. Three information gathering techniques---the construction of genograms, a modified version of the Life History Interview (McAdams, 1995), journal writing, and the collection of pertinent memorabilia---were employed to elicit the participants' stories. The views that provide the conceptual framework for this study are grounded in social learning theory and acculturation theory, and refer to dynamic models of ethnic and racial identity development. More specifically the understanding of identity as malleable and dynamic, of ethnic and racial "minorities" as historically marginalized peoples, and of the family as the primary socializing force for individuals, guided the co-construction and interpretation of stories shared by the participants in this study. Recursive processes of interviewing, and transcribing and coding with a second reader led to the emergence of various themes from participants' interviews. The importance of education, the importance of family, and the purpose of religion emerged as themes for each participant. Several sub-themes---phenotype, body image, social status, maintaining cultural connection, and negotiating multiple identities---also emerged for each participant. These sub-themes were interpreted to be indicative of a unifying theme which brought to light how issues related to ethnicity, and to the related construct race, were operational in the daily lives of the participants. Counseling considerations and implications for future research are discussed.

Traffic Crash Modeling Considering Inconsistent Observations, Interaction Behavior, and Nonlinear Relationships

Lao, Yunteng University of Washington 2013 해외박사(DDOD)

Traffic collisions are a worldwide issue that can cause injury and death, which leads to billions of dollars in damages every year. Significant research efforts have been undertaken to develop and utilize statistical modeling techniques for analyzing the characteristics of crash count data. While these modeling techniques have been providing meaningful outputs, improvements on these modeling methods still need to better understand the crash risk and the contributing factors. Five important issues in crash data modeling are identified in this research. The first two issues are over or under dispersion with crash data and excess zeros within crash records. Considering that they have been well studied in the previous research, this study focuses on the remaining three major issues. The first one is relevant to the partial observations of multiple processes, i.e. crash data may be collected by different agencies that create multiple data sources and may be inconsistent. A modeling mechanism that takes advantage of all datasets for better estimation results is highly desirable. The second one is an interaction issue. Some collisions are single vehicle crashes, such as off-road crashes and rollover incidents, and some collisions involve interaction behavior, such as the Animal-Vehicle Collision (AVC) and the Vehicle-Vehicle Collision. The characteristics of crashes with interaction behavior are different from those with only one vehicle involved. It is challenging to develop a crash modeling scheme that can capture the interaction behavior. The last one is the nonlinear relationship issue. Most previous collision models are Generalized Linear Model-based (GLM-based) approaches. Such GLM-based approaches are constrained by their linear model specifications because, in most situations, the relationship between the crash rate and its contributing factors are not linear or may not even be monotonic. Thus, finding a way to model the collision data with nonlinear and non-monotonic relationships is of utmost importance. To address the issues of inconsistent observations, two techniques are developed. A fuzzy logic-based data mapping algorithm is proposed as the first technique to match data from two datasets so that duplicate crash records can be removed when combining these datasets. The membership functions of the fuzzy logic algorithm are established based on survey inputs collected from experts of the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT). As verified by expert judgment collected through another survey, the accuracy of this algorithm was approximately 90%. Applying this algorithm to the two WSDOT datasets relevant to AVC, reported AVC data and the Carcass Removal (CR) data, the combined dataset has 15% –22% more records compared to the original CR dataset. The proposed algorithm is proven effective for merging the Reported AVC data and the CR data, with a combined dataset being more complete for wildlife safety studies and countermeasure evaluations. The second technique is a diagonal inflated bivariate Poisson regression (DIBP) method. It is an inflated version of bivariate Poisson regression model adopted to directly fit two datasets together. The proposed model technique was also applied to the reported AVC and CR data sets collected in Washington State between 2002 and 2006. The diagonal inflated bivariate Poisson model not only can model paired data with correlation, but also handle under- or over- dispersed data sets. Compared with three other types of models; double Poisson, bivariate Poisson, and zero-inflated double Poisson; the diagonal inflated bivariate Poisson model demonstrates its capability of fitting two datasets with remarkable overlapping portions resulting from the same stochastic process. Therefore, the diagonal inflated bivariate Poisson model provides researchers another new approach to investigating paired data sources from a different perspective. To address the issues with the interaction issue, a new occurrence mechanism-based probability model, an interaction-based model, which explicitly formulates the interactions between the objects, is introduced. The proposed method was applied to the AVC data and this method can explicitly formulate the interactions between animals and drivers to better capture the relationships among drivers' and animals' attributes, roadway and environmental factors, and AVCs. Findings of this study show that the proposed occurrence mechanism-based probability model better capture the impact of drivers' and animals' attributes on the AVC. This method can be further developed to model other types of collisions with interaction behavior. To address the nonlinear relationship issue, a Generalized Nonlinear Model (GNM)-based approach is put forward. The GNM-based approach is developed to utilize a nonlinear regression function to better elaborate non-monotonic relationships between the independent and dependent variables. Previous studies focused mainly on causal factor identification and crash risk modeling using Generalized Linear Models (GLMs), such as Poisson regression, and logistic regression among others. However, their basic assumption of a generalized linear relationship between the dependent variable (for example, crash rate) and independent variables (for example, contributing factors to crashes) established via a link function can often be violated in reality. Consequently, the GLM-based modeling results could provide biased findings and conclusions when the contributing factors have parabolic impact on the crashes. In this research, a GNM-based approach is applied with the rear end accident data and the AVC data collected from ten highway routes starting in 2002 and ending in 2006. For the rear-end collision application, the results show that truck percentage and grade have a parabolic impact: both items increase crash risks initially, but decrease risks after certain thresholds. Similarly, Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) and grade also have a parabolic impact on the AVC rate. Such non-monotonic relationships cannot be captured by regular GLM's, which further demonstrates the flexibility of GNM-based approaches in modeling the nonlinear relationship among data and providing more reasonable explanations. The superior GNM-based model interpretations better explain the parabolic impacts of some specific contributing factors and help in selecting and evaluating rear-end crash safety improvement plans. In Summary, these solutions proposed to address the three major issues in crash modeling are important for crash studies. The fuzzy-logic based data mapping algorithm can combine partial observations from different processes to form up a more complete dataset for a thorough analysis. The diagonal inflated bivariate Poisson models can directly take two data observation processes into account. The occurrence mechanism based probability models and GNM based models are effective methods for handling the interaction issue and non-linear relationships between dependent and independent variables.

Part I. High performance liquid chromatography - electrospray ionization - tandem mass spectrometry analysis of pyridyloxobutyl DNA adducts in F344 rats treated with tobacco-specific nitrosamines. Part II. Studies of an acetaldehyde - derived interstrand DNA cross-link

Lao, Yanbin University of Minnesota 2006 해외박사(DDOD)

4-(Methylnitrosamino)-1-,(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK), 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanol (NNAL) and N'-nitrosonornicotine (NNN) are tobacco-specific nitrosamines which are present only in tobacco or its smoke. Human exposure to these nitrosamines is substantial. They are among the most important carcinogens in tobacco products, inducing tumors in rodents, and are likely causative agents for smoking-induced human cancers. In rats treated with NNK, NNAL and NNN in the drinking water, lung and pancreas are the main targets for NNK and NNAL carcinogenicity, while NNN causes esophageal and nasal tumors. A mixture of NNK and NNN induces tumors of oral cavity when swapped on the oral cavity of rats. Their carcinogenic properties are exerted through cytochrome P450-catalyzed bioactivation to form electrophilic species, followed by DNA adduct formation. The formation of pyridyloxobutyl (POB)-DNA adducts is a common pathway following bioactivation of NNK, NNAL and NNN, and is considered as an important mechanism for their tumorigenicity in rats. Although POB-DNA adducts have been known for fifteen years as 4-hydroxy-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (HPB)-releasing adducts, the structures of specific POB-DNA adducts have been characterized only recently. There was no quantitative method available for comprehensive analysis of individual POB-DNA adducts in vivo. In this thesis, a high performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry method was developed for quantitative analysis of four POB-DNA adducts. This new methodology was applied in studies in which rats were chronically treated with NNK, (R)-NNAL, (S)-NNAL, (R)-NNN or (S)-NNN. The results demonstrate for the first time the accumulation and persistence of specific POB-DNA adducts in rat lung and liver during chronic treatment with NNK, (R)-NNAL, (S)-NNAL, ( R)-NNN or (S)-NNN as well as in esophagus of ( R)- or (S)-NNN-treated rats. The studies support the hypothesis that preferential retention of (S)-NNAL in the lung, followed by reconversion to NNK, is critical for lung carcinogenesis by N-NK and NNAL. (S)-NNN produced higher levels of POB-DNA adducts in esophagus than (R)-NNN, and therefore is likely more carcinogenic. In additional studies on the carcinogen acetaldehyde, its monadducted and interstrand cross-linked DNA oligonucleotides were synthesized. The optimum distance and orientation for cross-link formation was determined in a sequence containing 5'-CG-31.

Restoring the treasury of mind: The practical knowledge of the "Natural History"

Lao, Eugenia Princeton University 2008 해외박사(DDOD)

This dissertation is concerned with situating the Natural History in the social and intellectual culture of early Flavian Rome. In order to do this I avoid approaching the work as the encyclopedia that it is usually considered, as the generic term was not recognized in antiquity. Instead I treat the work just as a unified literary composition with a complex and sophisticated sense of its own place in literary tradition. From this perspective I examine the question of the Natural History's utility by integrating consideration of the utility that the text imagined itself fulfilling with consideration of the utility that it was able to offer its original audience of educated elite. After an introductory chapter, the second chapter takes up the practice of artificial memory technique and memory feats. I show how the text engaged with mnemonic practices, and how this engagement was both a self-conscious literary device and potentially practical in its results. Chapter 3 sketches out a social context for exchanging the information contained in the Natural History: dinner-parties. I detail the ways in which the text reproduced the poetics of table conversation, and thus acted as an extension of such face-to-face occasions. My fourth chapter turns to the text's preoccupation with money matters, focusing on its dealings with luxury. I look at passages where Pliny registers the market applications of the information he records, and consider the implications of these passages for his ethical positions. In my final chapter I address the great attention given to agriculture and medicine. The two topics' structural position in the text is significant. I suggest that the text is organized around an image of the ideal home and the hope of reinstating ideal domestic practices.

Diversified approach to the mathematical and computational modeling of biological systems

Lao, Bert Juan University of California, Los Angeles 2008 해외박사(DDOD)

Mathematical and computational modeling approaches were applied to the study of four biological systems, each corresponding to a specific length scale. The four systems investigated were: (i) Molecular scale: The Fc/FcRn protein binding interaction, (ii) Cellular scale: The transferrin trafficking pathway, (iii) Multicellular scale: The prostate epithelium, and (iv) Whole-body scale: The regulation of iron uptake. i. Molecular scale. Since the binding of Fc to the neonatal Fc receptor, FcRn, is responsible for the long half-life of IgG, one approach to extend the half-lives of therapeutic antibodies involves optimizing this interaction. To identify Fc mutations which could increase its affinity for FcRn, a computer program was developed which predicted the effects of Fc mutations on FcRn binding affinity. The program successfully recapitulated qualitative trends in the experimental binding of Fc mutants to FcRn. ii. Cellular scale. Transferrin has been used to target therapeutics to tumors, since the transferrin receptor is overexpressed in cancers. To improve transferrin drug carrier efficacy, a mathematical model of the transferrin intracellular trafficking pathway was formulated. The model predicted that lowering the iron release rate of transferrin would increase cellular association and probability of delivering a drug, which was subsequently verified with in vitro trafficking and cytotoxicity experiments. iii. Multicellular scale. Experimental studies suggest that cell movement may play a part in homeostasis of the prostate epithelium, and certain genes frequently altered in prostate cancer are known to regulate cell movement. To investigate the role of prostate cell movement, an agent-based model of the prostate epithelium was established. Simulations of cell movement behaviors within a three-dimensional reconstruction of a prostate duct were evaluated against experimental observations. iv. Whole-body scale. To highlight the importance of recent findings in the study of iron homestasis, and to clarify the role of recent findings in the study of iron homeostasis in the context of an overall model of iron regulation, a compartmental model of iron homeostasis was developed. It was shown that the characteristics of hereditary hemochromatosis could be reproduced by altering the values of molecular parameters in a fashion consistent with the effects of mutations in the HFE gene.

Transport properties and nanosensors of oxide nanowires and nanobelts

Lao, Changshi Georgia Institute of Technology 2007 해외박사(DDOD)

ZnO is one of the most important materials for electronics, optoelectronics, piezoelectricity and optics. With a wide band gap of 3.37eV and an exiton binding energy of 60meV, ZnO ID nanostructures exhibit promising properties in a lot of optical device applications. It is also an important piezoelectric material and has applications in a new category of nanodevices, nano-piezotronics. Demonstrated prototype of devices includes nanogenerators, piezoelectric-FET, and a series of evolutive devices based on the concept of nanogenerator. This is based on working principle of a semiconductor and piezoelectric coupled property. This thesis is about the growth, characterization and device fabrication of ZnO nanowires and nanobelts for sensors and UV detectors. First, the fundamental synthesis of ZnO nanostructurs is investigated, particularly polar surface dominated nanostructues, to illustrate the unique growth configurations of ZnO nanobelts, nanorings and nanosprings. Detail study in this part includes nanobelts, nanorings, nanocombs, nanonetworks, and nanodiskettes synthesis. Important factors in driving the nanostructure synthesis mechanism are analyzed, such as the chemical activities of different surface of ZnO, the abundant of available Zn ions in the vapor, and the polar surface dominated effects. These factors contribute to the large abundant available ZnO nanostructures. Then, the devices fabricated methods using individual nanowires/nanobelts and their electrical transport properties were carefully characterized. In this part, dominant factors which are critical for nanobelt device performance are investigated, such as the contact properties, interface effects, and durability testing. Also, a metal doping method is studied to explore the controlling and modification of nanowire electric and optical properties. Research results obtained here provide a basic and thoroughly understanding the control process and fabrication criteria in building a functional nanobelt based device. Further more, I will present the surface functionalization of nanobelt for largely improving its electrical, optoelectronic and chemical performance. Surface functionalization of nanobelts is proven to be an effective method in enhancing the semiconductor and metal contact. Piezoelectric field-effect transistors will be demonstrated as a powerful approach as chemical sensors. Finally, a technique is illustrated for functionalizing the surfaces of ZnO nanobelts for enhancing its UV sensitivity by over five orders of magnitude. This demonstrates an effective approach for fabricatiing ultrasensitive UV detectors. The research results presented in this thesis have made great contribution to the growth, device fabrication and novel applications of ZnO nanostructures for photonics, optoelectronics and sensors.