Larval habitat associations with human land uses, roads, rivers, and land cover for Anopheles albimanus, A. pseudopunctipennis, and A. punctimacula (Diptera: Culicidae) in coastal and highland Ecuador

Larval habitat for three highland Anopheles species: Anopheles albimanus Wiedemann, Anopheles pseudopunctipennis Theobald, and Anopheles punctimacula Dyar and Knab was related to human land uses, rivers, roads, and remotely sensed land cover classifications in the western Ecuadorian Andes. Of the five commonly observed human land uses, cattle pasture (n = 30) provided potentially suitable habitat for A. punctimacula and A. albimanus in less than 14% of sites, and was related in a principal components analysis (PCA) to the presence of macrophyte vegetation, greater surface area, clarity, and algae cover. Empty lots (n = 30) were related in the PCA to incident sunlight and provided potential habitat for A. pseudopunctipennis and A. albimanus in less than 14% of sites. The other land uses surveyed (banana, sugarcane, and mixed tree plantations; n = 28, 21, 25, respectively) provided very little standing water that could potentially be used for larval habitat. River edges and eddies (n = 41) were associated with greater clarity, depth, temperature, and algae cover, which provide potentially suitable habitat for A. albimanus in 58% of sites and A. pseudopunctipennis in 29% of sites. Road-associated water bodies (n = 38) provided potential habitat for A. punctimacula in 44% of sites and A. albimanus in 26% of sites surveyed. Species collection localities were compared to land cover classifications using Geographic Information Systems software. All three mosquito species were associated more often with the category “closed/open broadleaved evergreen and/or semi-deciduous forests” than expected (P ≤ 0.01 in all cases), given such a habitat’s abundance. This study provides evidence that specific human land uses create habitat for potential malaria vectors in highland regions of the Andes.

Small, black, soft cover notebook which has “Niagara Historical Society” taped to the front cover

Small, black, soft cover notebook which has “Niagara Historical Society” taped to the front cover. It contains handwritten entries which include: names of early settlers; buildings; veterans at Queenston Heights, 1859; group of Indians; and list of people whose picture was taken in 1870[?] at Queenston, n.d.

Notebook with H.K. Woodruff written on the front cover

Notebook with H.K. Woodruff written on the front cover (soft cover). Inside, there is a list of 48 diverse items which include: sword found at Lundy’s Lane, stuffed frog from Long Point, Indian pipe, 5 curious old revolutionary pistols and Mrs. S. Bull’s slippers. At the back of the book there is a list of 22 items including: proclamation issued by Sir Isaac Brock on Feb. 24, 1812 and Egyptian mummy, 1884-1885.

Canadian Bank of Commerce (vinyl cover), St. Catharines bank book of Welland D. Woodruff Esq.

Canadian Bank of Commerce (vinyl cover), St. Catharines bank book of Welland D. Woodruff Esq., 1915-1917.

Memoranda booklet (soft cover) compliments of the Canadian Bank of Commerce, St. Catharines Branch

Memoranda booklet (soft cover) compliments of the Canadian Bank of Commerce, St. Catharines Branch. Only one page has writing on it. It appears to be a shopping list, n.d.

Notebook (vinyl cover) with the word “Cash” on the front

Notebook (vinyl cover) with the word “Cash” on the front. There are a number of names and addresses within the front and back covers. Some of the pages are loose. The entries include lists of goods sold from 1953-1961.

Diagrams (charts and graphs) made into a booklet with a newspaper cover

Diagrams (charts and graphs) made into a booklet with a newspaper cover. This booklet contains cross sections of the back ditch on the south side of the Welland Canal feeder, west of the Marshville culverts (45 pages, hand drawn). This was created by Fred Holmes, Oct. 3, 1857.

What I saw in california : being the journal of a tour... in the year 1846-1847

UANL

Localización del locus de la enfermedad de Charcot-Marie-Tooth tipo1A : asociación de esta enfermedad con una duplicación de DNA

Tesis (Doctorado en Ciencias con Especialidad en Biología Molecular e Ingeniería Genética) UANL

Stochastic simulation to improve land-cover estimates derived from coarse spatial resolution satellite imagery = La simulation stochastique pour améliorer les estimations de la couverture des sols à partir d'images satellitales à résolution spatiale grossière

Thèse diffusée initialement dans le cadre d'un projet pilote des Presses de l'Université de Montréal/Centre d'édition numérique UdeM (1997-2008) avec l'autorisation de l'auteur.

Analyse ludique de la franchise Saw

La saga Saw est une franchise qui a marqué le cinéma d’horreur des années 2000. Le présent mémoire tâchera d’en faire une étude détaillée et rigoureuse en utilisant la notion de jeu. En élaborant tout d’abord un survol du cinéma d’horreur contemporain et en observant la réception critique de la saga à travers l’étude de différents articles, ce travail tentera en majeure partie d’analyser la franchise Saw en rapport avec l’approche ludique du cinéma en général et celle adoptée par Bernard Perron. Cette étude, qui s’élaborera tant au niveau diégétique que spectatoriel, aura pour but de montrer l’importance de la place qu’occupe la notion de jeu dans cette série de films.

Effect of osteogenesis imperfecta on orthodontic tooth movement in a mouse model

Thesis written in co-mentorship with director: Nelly Huynh; co-directors: Frank Rauch and Jean-Marc Retrouvey; collaborators: Clarice Nishio, Duy-Dat Vu and Nathalie Alos

Spectroscopic Investigation of Tooth Caries and Demineralization

Dental caries persists to be the most predominant oral disease in spite of remarkable progress made during the past half- century to reduce its prevalence. Early diagnosis of carious lesions is an important factor in the prevention and management of dental caries. Conventional procedures for caries detection involve visual-tactile and radiographic examination, which is considered as “gold standard”. These techniques are subjective and are unable to detect the lesions until they are well advanced and involve about one-third of the thickness of enamel. Therefore, all these factors necessitate the need for the development of new techniques for early diagnosis of carious lesions. Researchers have been trying to develop various instruments based on optical spectroscopic techniques for detection of dental caries during the last two decades. These optical spectroscopic techniques facilitate noninvasive and real-time tissue characterization with reduced radiation exposure to patient, thereby improving the management of dental caries. Nonetheless, a costeffective optical system with adequate sensitivity and specificity for clinical use is still not realized and development of such a system is a challenging task.Two key techniques based on the optical properties of dental hard tissues are discussed in this current thesis, namely laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) and diffuse reflectance (DR) spectroscopy for detection of tooth caries and demineralization. The work described in this thesis is mainly of applied nature, focusing on the analysis of data from in vitro tooth samples and extending these results to diagnose dental caries in a clinical environment. The work mainly aims to improve and contribute to the contemporary research on fluorescence and diffuse reflectance for discriminating different stages of carious lesions. Towards this, a portable and compact laser-induced fluorescence and reflectance spectroscopic system (LIFRS) was developed for point monitoring of fluorescence and diffuse reflectance spectra from tooth samples. The LIFRS system uses either a 337 nm nitrogen laser or a 404 nm diode laser for the excitation of tooth autofluorescence and a white light source (tungsten halogen lamp) for measuring diffuse reflectance.Extensive in vitro studies were carried out on extracted tooth samples to test the applicability of LIFRS system for detecting dental caries, before being tested in a clinical environment. Both LIF and DR studies were performed for diagnosis of dental caries, but special emphasis was given for early detection and also to discriminate between different stages of carious lesions. Further the potential of LIFRS system in detecting demineralization and remineralization were also assessed.In the clinical trial on 105 patients, fluorescence reference standard (FRS) criteria was developed based on LIF spectral ratios (F500/F635 and F500/F680) to discriminate different stages of caries and for early detection of dental caries. The FRS ratio scatter plots developed showed better sensitivity and specificity as compared to clinical and radiographic examination, and the results were validated with the blindtests. Moreover, the LIF spectra were analyzed by curve-fitting using Gaussian spectral functions and the derived curve-fitted parameters such as peak position, Gaussian curve area, amplitude and width were found to be useful for distinguishing different stages of caries. In DR studies, a novel method was established based on DR ratios (R500/R700, R600/R700 and R650/R700) to detect dental caries with improved accuracy. Further the diagnostic accuracy of LIFRS system was evaluated in terms of sensitivity, specificity and area under the ROC curve. On the basis of these results, the LIFRS system was found useful as a valuable adjunct to the clinicians for detecting carious lesions.

Assessment of land use and land cover changes during the last 50 years in oases and surrounding rangelands of Xinjiang, NW China

An analysis of historical Corona images, Landsat images, recent radar and Google Earth® images was conducted to determine land use and land cover changes of oases settlements and surrounding rangelands at the fringe of the Altay Mountains from 1964 to 2008. For the Landsat datasets supervised classification methods were used to test the suitability of the Maximum Likelihood Classifier with subsequent smoothing and the Sequential Maximum A Posteriori Classifier (SMAPC). The results show a trend typical for the steppe and desert regions of northern China. From 1964 to 2008 farmland strongly increased (+ 61%), while the area of grassland and forest in the floodplains decreased (- 43%). The urban areas increased threefold and 400 ha of former agricultural land were abandoned. Farmland apparently affected by soil salinity decreased in size from 1990 (1180 ha) to 2008 (630 ha). The vegetated areas of the surrounding rangelands decreased, mainly as a result of overgrazing and drought events.The SMAPC with subsequent post processing revealed the highest classification accuracy. However, the specific landscape characteristics of mountain oasis systems required labour intensive post processing. Further research is needed to test the use of ancillary information for an automated classification of the examined landscape features.

Leguminous cover crops differentially affect maize yields in three contrasting soil types of Kakamega, Western Kenya

Maize production in smallholder farming systems in Kenya is largely limited by low soil fertility. As mineral fertilizer is expensive, green manuring using leguminous cover crops could be an alternative strategy for farmers to enhance farm productivity. However due to variability in soil type and crop management, the effects of green manure are likely to differ with farms. The objectives of this study were to evaluate Mucuna pruriens and Arachis pintoi on (i) biomass and nitrogen fixation (^15N natural abundance), (ii) soil carbon and nitrogen stocks and (iii) their effects on maize yields over two cropping seasons in Kakamega, Western Kenya. Mucuna at 6 weeks accumulated 1–1.3 Mg ha^{-1} of dry matter and 33–56 kg ha^{-1} nitrogen of which 70% was nitrogen derived from the atmosphere (Ndfa). Arachis after 12 months accumulated 2–2.7 Mg ha^{-1} of dry matter and 51–74 kg N ha^{-1} of which 52-63 % was from Ndfa. Soil carbon and nitrogen stocks at 0–15 cm depth were enhanced by 2-4 Mg C ha^{-1} and 0.3–1.0 Mg N ha^{-1} under Mucuna and Arachis fallow, irrespective of soil type. Maize yield increased by 0.5-2 Mg ha^{-1} in Mucuna and 0.5–3 Mg ha^{-1} in Arachis and the response was stronger on Nitisol than on Acrisol or Ferralsol. We concluded that leguminous cover crops seem promising in enhancing soil fertility and maize yields in Kenya, provided soil conditions and rainfall are suitable.