287 research outputs found
Book Ends & Odd Books : Publications Refuting Conventional Form from the Banff Centre Library Collection
No full textMathur explains how he "unselected" nearly 200 works for this exhibition of unconventional publications by international artists and authors, recognizing the influence of Ulises Carrion's article "The New Art of Making Books." The author reflects upon the roles of language and poetics, the distinction between book and text, and how politics and power affect the making and reception of these works. 2 bibl. ref
Book review: paper tiger: law, bureaucracy and the developmental state in Himalayan India by Nayanika Mathur
No full textFollowing eighteen months of intensive fieldwork, in Paper Tiger: Law, Bureaucracy and the Developmental State in Himalayan India author Nayanika Mathur details the everyday absurdities of bureaucracy in the Himalayan borderlands, showing the frequent gulf between ‘real life’ and the abstract workings of the law. Elisabetta Iob highly recommends this accessible, witty and vividly written book as an outstanding and essential example of ethnographic research
FINANCING COMMUNITY FACILITIES: A CASE STUDY OF THE PARKS AND RECREATIONAL GENERAL OBLIGATION BOND MEASURE OF SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA
No full textThis study of the City of San Jose’s Parks and Recreation General Obligation (GO) Bond Measure seeks to identify the politics-, management-, and planning-related lessons learned by the City as it developed its community facilities using the GO bonds proceeds. The study finds that these lessons include: be conservative in what you promise the residents; be prepared for changes in economic environment by identifying supplementary funding sources should the primary source not yield adequate funds; make sure that the jurisdiction is organizationally capable of handling the increased workload; and prepare detailed project plans prior to the bond issuance.Community Infrastructure and Services; Municipal Bonds; Public Finance
An Analytical Criterion for Centrifugal Instability in Non-Axisymmetric Vortices
No full textNon-axisymmetric vortices are ubiquitous in nature; examples include polar vortices in planets, the giant red spot in Jupiter, tornadoes and cyclones on Earth, mesoscale eddies in the ocean. Turbulent flows are furthermore known to be dominated by small- and large-scale vortex structures. Owing to the wide range of applications, knowledge of conditions under which a given vortex becomes unstable is beneficial. Here, the centrifugal instability of two-dimensional, non-axisymmetric vortices in the presence of an axial flow and a background rotation is studied using the local stability approach. The local stability approach, based on geometric optics and similar in formulation to the rapid distortion theory \cite{bib:godeferd2001}, considers the evolution of shortwavelength perturbations along streamlines in the base flow. This approach, developed by Lifschitz Hameiri \cite{bib:lifschitz1991}, is particularly useful for base flows for which a global stability analysis is computationally expensive. A sufficient criterion for centrifugal instability in an axisymmetric vortex with and is first derived by analytically solving the local stability equations for wave vectors that are periodic upon evolution around a closed streamline. This criterion is then heuristically extended to non-axisymmetric vortices and written in terms of integral quantities on a streamline. The criterion is then shown to be accurate in describing centrifugal instability over a reasonably large range of parameters that specify Stuart vortices and Taylor-Green vortices
Characterization Of Structural And Non-structural Proteins Of Positive Sense, Single-stranded RNA Plant Viruses
No full textIn the present thesis, two positive sense single-stranded RNA viruses have been used as models to understand the structure and function of viral-encoded proteins. One of them, Pepper Vein Banding Virus (PVBV; genus Potyvirus; family Potyviridae) is a flexuous, rod-shaped virus that encodes for a polyprotein of size ~340 kDa. The polyprotein undergoes proteolytic processing by viral-encoded proteases, of which Nuclear Inclusion-a Protease (NIa-Pro) is the major protease. It is a serine-like cysteine protease which cleaves between a Q/A or Q/S, present in the context of the heptapeptide recognition sequence. The temporal regulation of intermediates and mature proteins released by NIa-Pro cleavage is crucial for a successful infection. In the present study, histidine-tagged NIa-Pro, Viral Protein genome-linked (VPg), and the cleavage site mutant (E191A) VPg-Pro were over-expressed in E. coli and purified. The protease activity of NIa-Pro was monitored using an HPLC-based protease assay developed using a peptide substrate. NIa-Pro protease activity was found to get modulated upon interaction with VPg and upon undergoing phosphorylation. Both these events have been found to involve the face of NIa-Pro which contains the solvent-exposed Trp143. Mutational studies and molecular dynamics analyses provide evidence that this residue is buried upon interaction of NIa-Pro with VPg, and any perturbation of its orientation influences the active site Cys151 via an extensive interaction network. This interaction was found to enhance the velocity of NIa-Pro protease activity, especially if the two domains were present in trans (VPg+Pro). In addition, the main-chain –NH2 group of Trp143 was found to be hydrogen-bonded to the side chain –OH group of Ser129, the residue which was identified to undergo phosphorylation by host plant kinases. Interestingly, when the two domains were present in cis (E191A VPg-Pro), no phosphorylation was observed. Mutations of Ser129 (to phosphorylation-mimic Asp or phosphorylation-deficient Ala residues) which affected this H-bond were found to disturb Trp143 and Cys151 orientation, which drastically reduced the protease activity of NIa-Pro. Within the polyprotein, VPg is present at the N-terminus of NIa-Pro and the cleavage site between them is suboptimal (E/A). In the present study, VPg-Pro was shown to be covalently linked to the genomic RNA present in the virions. Interestingly, during purification, VPg could only be purified from the soluble when it was expressed at the N-terminus of NIa-Pro. A series of bioinformatics and biophysical analysis of VPg showed that PVBV VPg, like other potyviral VPgs, exists as a molten-globule. Moreover, while VPg was shown to harbour the Walker motifs, it was found to exhibit an ATPase activity only when it was present with the NIa-Pro (especially in cis). Lys47 and Asp88:Glu89 were found crucial for optimal activity. Over all the results demonstrated that there is a reciprocal modulation of structure and function of the VPg and NIa-Pro domains. These results can explain the possible significance of an impeded cleavage rate between the two domains of VPg-Pro during PVBV infection. The precursor, VPg-Pro, could offer the advantage of evading the inhibitory phosphorylation of NIa-Pro by the host, as well as drive certain viral processes by virtue of its ATPase activity. And subsequent cleavage of the domains and their trans interaction could offer a higher turnover rate which might assist sufficient CP production required for viral morphogenesis. Another virus, Tobacco Streak Virus (TSV) that belongs to the Ilarvirus genus of the Bromoviridae family is a spherical virus which forms pleiomorphic icosahedral virus particles. It has a tripartite genome and each RNA is encapsidated individually. In the present thesis, TSV was used as a model to understand the properties of its structural protein-the coat protein (CP), with the aim of deciphering TSV assembly process. Thus, the CP gene from TSV RNA 3 was cloned and over-expressed in E. coli. The coat protein thus expressed formed virus-like particles (VLPs), which could be disassembled into dimers using high CaCl2 concentrations. Reassembly of VLPs was possible from dimers even in the absence of any nucleic acid. Mutational analysis of the N-terminal disordered domain showed that 26 amino acid residues from the amino-terminus could be crucial for capsid heterogeneity while, zinc-binding domain was essential for assembly. Overall, the present study shows that the flexible W-C loop of PVBV NIa-Pro, the disordered N-terminal region of PVBV VPg and the disordered N-terminal region of TSV CP harbour residues crucial for regulation of protein function. Such regulatory elements would ultimately allow viruses to maintain a smaller protein number, and thus a smaller genome size
Paradise found : the settler colonial legacy of Beautiful British Columbia magazine
No full textOkanagan Valley of British Columbia is often depicted in Canadian settler culture as an oasis in a desert, or a Garden of Eden, thanks to its exceptional climate and semi-arid shrub steppe biome. With its fruit, tourism, and wine industries, it is best known today as place of leisure and plenty. This idyllic and utopic image of the place is, however, complicated by the complex history of its cultural and material landscape. The Okanagan idealized by Canadians is, in fact, the traditional unceded territory of, primarily, the Syilx people. Since the late 19th century, through successive phases of settler colonialism in the Okanagan, the material and cultural landscape of the area has been written over, reshaped, transformed, and remains contested in many ways.
This thesis contributes to a discussion on the making of environmental cultures through an ecocritical reading of the role of the Beautiful British Columbia magazine – with a focus on the years 1959-1983 when it was funded by the provincial government – in shaping the idealized narrative and landscape aesthetic of the Okanagan Valley that persist to this day. The visual and textual analysis of the magazine is framed by the socio-political, economic, and material history of the region from the mid to late decades of the 20th century. While international tourists were presumably the primary audience of the magazine, this thesis argues that the magazine also served the province’s campaign to attract Anglophone migrants and to ‘sell’ British Columbia and more specifically the Okanagan as an idyllic home for white settler populations. It traces and uncovers some of the recurring aesthetic tropes that have constructed and framed both the British Columbian landscape generally and within that, the Okanagan Valley, as an idyllic place to live. It contrasts the white settler colonial landscape aesthetic of the Okanagan with Indigenous imaginations of the place. It brings out the fault lines and contradictions between the imposed settler aesthetic and the material affordances of the environment.Creative and Critical Studies, Faculty of (Okanagan)Graduat
An Interactive Dialogue for the Creation, Maintenance and Querying of a Data Base Representative of the Anatomy of an Administrative System
No full textTitle: An Interactive Dialogue for the Creation, Maintenance and Querying of a Data Base Representative of the Anatomy of an Administrative System, Author: Pratima Mathur, Location: ThodeThe logical structure of a database is given, and is
representative of the anatomy of an administrative system,
and of the personnel organization by which it is operated.
This project will adopt an appropriate host computer,
terminal, and physical representation of the database, for
the main purpose of developing a user-terminal dialogue by
which the database can be created and maintained. The
dialogue should be as easy and flexible to use by an audit
analyst as is possible, while at the same time imposing a
systematic and disciplined approach to the task.ThesisMaster of Science (MS
Uncovering a novel role for FXR-SHP axis in liver physiology, diseases and beyond
No full textLiver performs a multitude of functions ranging from detoxification, metabolism and digestion. To execute these tasks, one of the mechanisms that the liver utilizes is nuclear receptor signaling, which in turn can transcriptionally regulate gene networks. My doctoral thesis focuses on studying the role of two nuclear receptors, FXR and SHP in maintaining liver function. Farnesoid X Receptor (FXR) and Small Heterodimer Partner (SHP) are well-known regulators of glucose, fat and bile acid homeostasis. Here, I uncover novel roles for FXR-SHP axis not only in the liver but also in extrahepatic organs, like heart. In Chapter 2, I discuss how hepatic loss of FXR and SHP results in increased glycosylation of liver proteins and structural defects in Golgi apparatus, and ultimately liver cancer. Chapter 3 focuses on comprehending how FXR-SHP ablation results in increased drug metabolic capacity of the liver. Finally, chapter 4 discusses how liver dysfunction, caused by loss of FXR and SHP, can induce metabolic and functional defects in heart. Taken together, these projects will help understand some of the FXR and SHP transcriptional networks under different physiological and pathological contexts and may open avenues for pharmacological manipulation to treat various diseases.Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2021-08-01The student, Bhoomika Mathur, accepted the attached license on 2019-07-04 at 01:18.The student, Bhoomika Mathur, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2019-07-04 at 01:31.This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2019-07-09 at 15:41.DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #14170 on 2019-11-26 at 13:04:27Made available in DSpace on 2019-11-26T20:49:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 3
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Algorithmic advances in dynamic analysis for detecting concurrency bugs
No full textConcurrency is an indispensable programming paradigm and multi-threaded programs form the bedrock of most modern software applications. Multi-threaded programs, however, are also the most tricky to get right. Despite rigorous in-house testing, concurrency issues like data races, race conditions, deadlocks and atomicity violations incessantly find there way into production-level software. In the past, errors arising due to complex concurrency bugs in software have led to catastrophic loss of human lives and money. Tackling concurrency bugs, and in particular, efficiently detecting such bugs, has, therefore, been the center of attention in computer science research for several decades now.
Dynamic analysis techniques, in particular, have emerged as the de facto standard for detecting concurrency bugs. Such techniques, examine execution traces of programs, with an aim to detect concurrency bugs at runtime. This thesis advances the state-of-the art in dynamic analysis for detecting concurrency bugs. We propose several algorithms for improving the precision, recall and efficiency of existing techniques for dynamically detecting concurrency bugs like data races and atomicity violations. We also investigate several complexity-theoretic questions establishing precise complexity bounds on several questions arising in dynamic concurrency bug detection.
We first consider the problem of detecting data races dynamically. Most popular techniques for dynamic race detection are either based on a principle of lockset violations, or on the happens-before partial order. While these techniques are usually employed at runtime, for detecting data races on-the-fly, there are many scenarios when executions can be, or need to be analyzed for concurrency bugs in an offline setting. Since executions can be extremely large, they are often stored in a compressed format to ease their warehousing. In this thesis, we study the problem of detecting data races when the analysis needs to be performed over an execution that has been compressed using a grammar-based compression scheme. We show how to detect data races efficiently in such a setting, without needing to decompress the (potentially) exponentially succinct compressed format.
We next study the problem of dynamic race prediction, which asks if one can infer the presence of data races beyond those present in a single trace observed by monitoring a program while it is executing. Existing race detectors report false alarms, miss a lot of real races, or do not scale beyond small execution traces. We propose several algorithms that offer a good balance of scalability and predictive power, while being sound (no false positives). We also study the problem from a complexity-theoretic point of view and identify upper and lower bounds, both in the general setting and in settings when the observed execution trace satisfies special properties.
Next, we consider the problem of dynamically detecting atomicity violations. This thesis proposes a linear time vector-clock algorithm for a well-studied notion of atomicity, called conflict serializability, for which the only known algorithms ran in cubic time.
The algorithms proposed in this thesis have been implemented and evaluated against large benchmark suites to evaluate their effectiveness. The techniques developed in this thesis are backed by strong theoretical foundations that ensure that our algorithms are scalable, sound and have high predictive power, making them applicable for analyzing modern software systems.Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2023-12-01The student, Umang Mathur, accepted the attached license on 2021-07-16 at 17:21.The student, Umang Mathur, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2021-07-16 at 17:26.This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2021-07-19 at 11:23.DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #16995 on 2022-04-06 at 17:16:10Made available in DSpace on 2022-04-29T21:41:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2
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Novel ATPase activity of the polyprotein intermediate, Viral Protein genome-linked-Nuclear Inclusion-a protease, of Pepper vein banding potyvirus
No full textPotyviruses temporally regulate their protein function by polyprotein processing. Previous studies have shown that VPg (Viral Protein genome-linked) of Pepper vein banding virus interacts with the NIa-Pro (Nuclear Inclusion-a protease) domain, and modulates the kinetics of the protease. In the present study, we report for the first time that VPg harbors the Walker motifs A and B, and the presence of NIa-Pro, especially in cis (cleavage site (E191A) VPg-Pro mutant), is essential for manifestation of the ATPase activity. Mutation of Lys47 (Walker motif A) and Asp88:Glu89 (Walker motif B) to alanine in E191A VPg-Pro lead to reduced ATPase activity, confirming that this activity was inherent to VPg. We propose that potyviral VPg, established as an intrinsically disordered domain, undergoes plausible structural alterations upon interaction with globular NIa-Pro which induces the ATPase activity. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved
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