Thèses sur le sujet « Cologne water »

The small island of St Barthélemy was a Swedish colony 1784–1878 and saw its greatest population growth and trade during the turn of the nineteenth century. This was because of Gustavia, the Swedish founded free port, which attracted mariners from the Caribbean, North America and Europe. Their goal was to become Swedish subjects, as Swedish neutrality provided a benefit during the various wars at this time between France, Great Britain and the United States. As these mariners changed their national allegiance from their country of origin to Sweden, questions about their political rights emerged. The makeup, as well as the role, of the local council became a contested issue between native and naturalized Swedes. This conflict, as well as many other local and global issues, was discussed in various mediums. I have examined petitions, the newspaper The Report of Saint Bartholomew and discussions within the council, to create an understanding of how political expression was formed by the population, as well as controlled by Swedish administrators. This analysis has been performed through an intersectional framework considering gender, race and ethnicity. My study shows that while most native and naturalized Swedes believed in input from the population, they had different perceptions of what the purpose of this input was. The Swedish administration saw the political participation of the naturalized population as purely advisory, without any obligation to perform its wishes, which the population resented and protested. Gender played a significant role in the formation of political expression, as masculinity was essential to the identity of white men and free men of colour as political subjects. Yet ethnicity, in terms of place of birth, had no significant impact among the free population’s political identity, although it did render them politically unreliable in the eye of native Swedish administration.

A nefrectomia 5/6 à um procedimento cirÃrgico muito utilizado em laboratÃrios de fisiologia para reproduzir a insuficiÃncia renal crÃnica dada a sua reprodutibilidade e praticidade. Pacientes com IR ou nefrectomizados, apresentam distÃrbios hemodinÃmicos como a hipervolemia e acÃmulo de substÃncias azotÃnicas no plasma, o que pode trazer sÃrias complicaÃÃes a diversos ÃrgÃos. O objetivo deste trabalho de pesquisa foi avaliar as alteraÃÃes que a nefrectomia 5/6 pode causar na permeabilidade colÃnica de ratos para Ãgua e eletrÃlitos (Na+,K+,Cl-) apÃs 3,7 e 14 dias de insuficiÃncia renal. O projeto foi aprovado pela CEUA-UFC com protocolo de n 11/15. Foram utilizados 92 animais (ratos machos wistar, pesando entre 280-300 g) divididos em trÃs grupos- 3 dias pÃs-nefrectomia 5/6, 7 dias pÃs-nefrectomia 5/6 e 14 dias pÃs nefrectomia 5/6- sendo cada grupo formado por um SHAM e outro experimental. Para os estudos da permeabilidade colÃnica de Ãgua e eletrÃlitos, os animais foram anestesiados com uretana, em seguida, submetidos à perfusÃo colÃnica com Tyroad + vermelho fenol durante 60min. Para todos os experimentos, monitoramos os parÃmetros hemodinÃmicos pressÃo arterial sistÃlica (PAS), pressÃo venosa central (PVC), frequÃncia cardÃaca (FC) e volume sanguÃneo (VS)e ainda as concentraÃÃes bioquÃmicas plasmÃticas de ureia e creatinina. Nossos resultados bioquÃmicos de urÃia e creatinina plasmÃtica nos grupos 7 e 14 dias confirmaram a insuficiÃncia renal apÃs nefrectomia 5/6 (114,8Â1,8dl/ml; 165,6Â7,2dl/ml) e (0,95Â0,02dl/ml; 1,3 0,07dl/ml) respectivamente. Os grupos 7 e 14 dias pÃs-nefrectomia 5/6 tambÃm apresentou significativas alteraÃÃes volÃmicas (11,12Â0,37 ml) e (15,83Â0,82ml). O grupo 3 dias nÃo apresentou resultados bioquÃmicos nem hemodinÃmicos significativos e uma insignificante secreÃÃo colÃnica de Ãgua e eletrÃlitos (Na+,K+,Cl-). CorrelaÃÃo por curvas de regressÃo linear entre a secreÃÃo colÃnica de agua e eletrÃlitos com a volemia no grupo 7dias se apresentou bastante significativa neste trabalho. ConcluÃmos que a nefrectomia 5/6 se mostrou eficiente no modelo de insuficiÃncia renal crÃnica, pois promoveu elevaÃÃo sucessiva nos nÃveis de ureia e creatinina sÃricos. A nefrectomia 5/6 promoveu a secreÃÃo colÃnica para Ãgua e eletrÃlitos tornando-se bem evidente em ratos nos grupos 7 e 14 dias pÃs-nefrectomia. A correlaÃÃo muito prÃxima das alteraÃÃes volÃmicas no grupo 7 dias com a secreÃÃo de Ãgua e eletrÃlitos (Na+, k+, Cl-) nos faz deduzir ser a hipervolemia plasmÃtica induzida pela nefrectomia 5/6 o determinante para absorÃÃo e ou secreÃÃo desses Ãons no cÃlon.
The nephrectomy 5/6 is a surgical procedure most commonly used in physiology laboratories to reproduce chronic renal failure due to its reproducibility and practicality. Patients with IR or nephrectomized present hemodynamic disorders such as fluid overload and accumulation of azotÃnicas substances in plasma, which can have serious complications in various organs. The aim of this research was to evaluate the changes that nephrectomy 5/6 can cause colonic permeability of rats to water and electrolytes (Na+,K+,Cl-) after 3,7 and 14 days of renal failure The project was approved by CEUA-UFC protocol with n 11/15. 92 animals were used (male rats Wistar, weighing 280-300 g) divided into three groups 3 days post-nephrectomy 5/6 7-days nephrectomy 5/6 and 14 days after nephrectomy 5 / 6- each group being formed by a SHAM and an experimental. For studies of colonic permeability of water and electrolytes, the animals were anesthetized with urethane, and then subjected to colonic infusion Tyroad + phenol red for 60 min. For all experiments, we monitor hemodynamic parameters (systolic-PAS blood pressure, central venous pressure, PVC, often heart-FC and blood volume- VS) and also biochemical plasma concentrations of urea and creatinine. Our biochemical results of bun and serum creatinine in groups 7 and 14 days confirmed the renal failure after nephrectomy 5/6 (114,8Â1,8dl/ml; 165,6Â7,2dl/ml) e (0,95Â0,02dl/ml; 1,3 0,07dl/ml) respectively. Groups 7 and 14 days post-nephrectomy 5/6 also showed significant blood volume changes (11,12Â0,37 ml) e (15,83Â0,82ml) The group 3 days did not present biochemical or significant hemodynamic results and insignificant colonic secretion of water and electrolytes (Na+,K+,Cl-) Correlation by linear regression curves between the colonic secretion of water and electrolytes in the blood volume in the group 7days performed quite significant in this work. We conclude that the 5/6 nephrectomy proved effective in chronic renal failure model, as promoted successive rise in urea levels and serum creatinine. The nephrectomy 5/6 promoted colonic secretion into water and electrolytes becoming evident in rats in groups 7 and 14 days post-nephrectomy. The close relationship of blood volume changes in group 7 days with the secretion of water and electrolytes (Na+, k+, Cl-) It makes us deduct be plasma hyperglycemia induced by 5/6 nephrectomy the decisive for absorption and secretion of these ions or in the colon.

L’Oxydation en Voie Humide (OVH) est un procédé dont l’objectif est de dégrader la matière organique contenue dans les eaux usées à l’aide d’une réaction d’oxydation. L'OVH fonctionne à haute pression (10 – 30 MPa) et haute température (373 – 613 K) avec l’oxygène de l’air comme oxydant. Les procédés OVH sont mis en œuvre dans des réacteurs de type colonne à bulles, permettant de maximiser le temps de passage du liquide et le transfert de matière de l’oxygène du gaz vers le liquide, élément clé de l’efficacité du procédé. L’absence de données expérimentales et de corrélations, nécessaires pour l’estimation des paramètres gouvernant le transfert de matière dans les colonnes à bulles fonctionnant dans les conditions d’OVH, est donc pénalisante. Des mesures de rétention de gaz, de diamètre de bulle et d’aire interfaciale en eau claire et en présence d’un polluant (phénol), en conditions non réactives et réactives, ont montré des effets prépondérants de la vitesse superficielle de gaz, de la concentration en polluant et de la saturation du gaz par la vapeur d’eau. La bulle primaire, formée au niveau du distributeur de gaz, et le diamètre de la colonne sont des paramètres essentiels pour l’optimisation du procédé. La mesure du coefficient de transfert de matière, par une nouvelle méthode chimique utilisant l’oxydation du phénol, a montré que celui-ci dépend principalement du diamètre des bulles et des vitesses du gaz et du liquide. Ce travail expérimental est complété par l’établissement de corrélations des paramètres d’intérêt dans les conditions d’OVH, éléments pertinents pour le dimensionnement de procédés OVH fonctionnant en continu
Wet Air Oxidation (WAO) is a process dedicated to degrade the organic matter contained in wastewater with the help of an oxidation reaction. WAO works at high pressure (10 – 30 MPa) and high temperature (373 – 613 K) using oxygen from air as oxidiser. WAO processes are carried out in bubble column reactors in order to maximise both the liquid residence time and the mass transfer of oxygen from the gas to the liquid, one of the key element of the process. The lack of available data and correlations, needed for the prediction of the parameters governing mass transfer in bubble columns working in WAO conditions, is then penalising. Measurements of gas holdup, bubble diameters and interfacial area in clear water and in presence of a pollutant (phenol), in reactive and non-reactive conditions, show major effects of superficial gas velocity, phenol concentration and saturation of the gas by water vapor. The primary bubble, formed at the gas distributor, and the column diameter, are important design parameters for the process optimisation. Measurement of the mass transfer coefficient by a new chemical technique using phenol oxidation shows that it depends primarily on the bubble diameter and on the gas and liquid velocities. This experimental work is completed by the development of correlations of the key parameters in WAO conditions, providing relevant elements for the design of WAO units working in continuous mode

A large number of flows encountered in nature and in many industrial processes areintrinsically multiphase flows. The efficiency and the effectiveness of multiphase flow processes strongly depend on the ability to model the fluid flow behaviour. Thus, a robust and accurate description of multiphase flow can lead to an increase in performance, a reduction in cost, and an improvement in safety for engineering systems. In recent years, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has become an indispensable predictive tool for gathering information to be used for design and optimization for fluid systems. In this thesis the hydrodynamics of two bubbly flow systems, a bubble column and a waterjet-agitated flotation cell (Hydrojet cell), were studied by means of numerical simulations. In order to validate the bubble column CFD simulations Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) was used. An experimental investigation about bubble size distribution (BSD) along a water jet was carried out by means of image analysis. Because of high gas fraction and high velocity of the air/water streams used to agitate the Hydrojet cell, with the available equipment, no experimental measurements could be done to evaluate the velocity field of the cell. The thesis consists of three parts: theoretical part, bubble column study and Hydrojet cell study. In the theoretical part, first, a summary of fluid dynamics principles and an overview of the principal issues related to multiphase flow modelling were presented. Then a brief introduction to PIV and its application to two phase bubbly flow were given. Finally a review of the principle of the flotation process and its modelling were done in order to highlight the reasons for the low recovery of fine particles. Then the potentialities offered by the use of waterjets to fine particles flotation were presented. In the second part experimental and numerical studies of a bubble column were presented. PIV technique was used to determine the velocity field of a laboratory bubble column. A separation method for multiphase PIV was developed and tested. By means of the proposed method, the acquired mixed-fluid images were processed to obtain two sets of single phase images before PIV analysis. The velocity field was determined using a multi-pass crosscorrelation. Following three-dimensional time-dependent CFD simulations of a lab-scale bubble column were presented. The simulations were carried out using the Euler - Euler approach. Two different multiphase turbulence models, Shear Stress Transport (SST) and Large Eddy Simulation (LES), were tested, and different interfacial closure models reported in the literature were examined. When LES were used to model the turbulence instead of the SST model, much better agreement with the experimental data was found, provided that the drag, lift and virtual mass forces were taken into account. In the third part a preliminary experimental study, carried out in a rectangular flat cell, was presented. It was carried out to investigate the size distribution of bubbles generated by a moderate pressure water jet, by means of image analysis. This study showed the ability of water jets at moderate pressure to break an air stream into small bubbles. Increasing the pressure of the pump, smaller and more uniform bubbles were obtained. Then three-dimensional CFD simulations of the Hydrojet cell are presented. The Hydrojet cell, due to the exceeding computational burden, was simulated as a two-phase (gas-liquid) system, although actually it is a three-phase (gas-liquid-solid) system. Also in this case simulations were carried out using the Euler - Euler approach. The turbulence of the liquid phase was modelled with the SST model. The single reference frame technique was used to describe the movement of the waterjet lance. To achieve a homogeneous aeration in the region near the inlets different inlet velocity and rotational speed were tested. The results gave useful indications about the role of the four principal operating parameters: nozzles diameter, velocity of rotation of the lance, speed of the water jets and then pressure of the pump and inlet air flow rate. What emerges is the need of high rotational speed of the waterjet lance in order to ensure an uniform gas distribution within the mixing zone. This is not possible with the current apparatus. Thus in order to make the system suitable to produce an appropriate environment for the full development of the flotation process it is necessary to modify the system.

Dans le cadre de la modélisation climatique, la représentation du cycle de l'eau des surfaces continentales est primordiale. Actuellement, les "modèles de surface continentale" représentent l'évolution des flux d'eau verticaux dans des colonnes de sol de quelques mètres de profondeur et leur interaction avec l'atmosphère. En revanche, l'interaction avec les nappes de faible profondeur n'est pas prise en compte alors que leur présence influence fortement les flux d'évapotranspiration à l'échelle locale, et, en conséquence, le climat à l'échelle régionale. Une difficulté est que les zones où cette interaction apparaît relèvent d'une échelle inférieure à celle du maillage des modèles de surface continentale. L'objectif de cette thèse est de proposer un modèle qui permette de prendre en compte l'impact des nappes de faible profondeur sur les flux d'évapotranspiration pour les modélisations climatiques à l'échelle globale. La contrainte principale associée relève des temps de calculs, qui doivent être réduits pour permettre la réalisation de simulations sur de grandes échelles de temps et d'espace. Dans ce cadre, un nouveau modèle de colonne de sol est proposé. Une fonction de drainage imposée en bas de colonne permet de reproduire l'évolution temporelle du toit de la nappe, en interaction avec les processus d'infiltration et d'évapotranspiration. Le modèle est testé et validé sur des cas tests académiques simples dans un premier temps, puis sur le cas d'un bassin versant réel dans un second temps (bassin versant du Strengbach, en France). Enfin, une méthodologie basée sur ce modèle de colonne et permettant d'estimer les flux d'évapotranspiration en tenant compte de leur variabilité dans l'espace est introduite. Elle est appliquée à un bassin versant dont la superficie est proche de celle d'une maille classique des modèles de surface continentale (bassin versant du Little Washita, aux États-Unis)
The representation of the water cycle on land surfaces is essential for climate modeling. Nowadays, the "Land Surface Models" (LSMs) represent soil columns of a few meters deep and they simulate the temporal evolution of the vertical water flows and the interaction with the atmosphere. However, the interaction with a near-surface water table is not taken into account although it strongly influences the evapotranspiration fluxes at the local scale, and therefore the climate at the regional scale. This interaction, which occurs at a smaller scale than the grid scale of the LSMs, is difficult to model. The objective of this PhD is to propose a model that incorporates the impact of a near-surface water table on evapotranspiration fluxes for global climate models. The computation time of the model must be small enough to enable simulations at large spatial and temporal scales. In this context, a new soil column model is proposed with a drainage function that is imposed at the bottom of the column. This function aims at reproducing the temporal evolution of the water table level in interaction with both the infiltration and the evapotranspiration fluxes. The model is tested and validated on numerical experiments and on a real catchment (Strengbach, France). A methodology based on this column model is introduced to estimate the evapotranspiration fluxes taking into account their subgrid variability. This methodology is applied to a catchment whose area is similar to the one of a classic grid cell of LSMs (Little Washita, USA)

Water distribution networks are a fundamental part of any modern city and their daily operations constitute a significant expenditure in terms of energy and maintenance costs. Careful scheduling of pump operations may lead to significant energy savings and prevent wear and tear. By means of computer simulation, an optimal schedule of pumps can be found by an optimisation algorithm. The subject of this thesis is the study of pump scheduling as an optimisation problem. New representations of pump schedules are investigated for restricting the number of potential schedules. Recombination and mutation operators are proposed, in order to use the new representations in evolutionary algorithms. These new representations are empirically compared to traditional representations using different network instances, one of them being a large and complex network from UK. By means of the new representations, the evolutionary algorithm developed during this thesis finds new best-known solutions for both networks. Pump scheduling as the multi-objective problem of minimising energy and maintenance costs in terms of Pareto optimality is also investigated in this thesis. Two alternative surrogate measures of maintenance cost are considered: the minimisation of the number of pump switches and the maximisation of the shortest idle time. A single run of the multi-objective evolutionary algorithm obtains pump schedules with lower electrical cost and lower number of pump switches than those found in the literature. Alternatively, schedules with very long idle times may be found with slightly higher electrical cost. Finally, ant colony optimisation is also adapted to the pump scheduling problem. Both Ant System and Max-Min Ant System are tested. Max-Min Ant System, in particular, outperforms all other algorithms in the large real-world network instance and obtains competitive results in the smallest test network. Computation time is further reduced by parallel simulation of pump schedules.

Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias) breeding near a pulp mill at Crofton B.C. failed to raise young in 1987 and 1988. Elevated levels of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzo-furans were detected in their eggs. The highest 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) toxic equivalent level observed was 496 ng/kg (wet weight) in 1987 (Elliott et al. 1989). I compared the Crofton colony with a less contaminated colony on Sidney Island in 1988 and 1989. I examined three possible explanations for nesting failure: (i) abnormal nesting behaviour by parents because of contamination, (ii) disturbance by human activities, and (iii) predation by Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), Northwestern Crows (Corvus caurinus) and Common Ravens (Corvus corax). The Crofton colony was successful in 1989 and 1990. Within the TCDD toxic equivalent range of 34 - 257 ng/kg (1989), I observed no abnormal heron nesting behaviour or reduction in numbers of chicks fledged. In 1988 the herons at Crofton were disturbed repeatedly by human activities. Bald Eagles were observed daily at both Crofton and Sidney Island. The heron colony on Sidney Island failed in 1989 and 1990. The failures on Sidney Island were thought to involve a disturbance by eagles followed by rapid removal of eggs and young chicks at unattended nests by crows and ravens. It is likely that disturbance and predation played a part in the failure at Crofton in 1988, but there remains the possibility that environmental contaminants may have increased the sensitivity of herons to disturbance and predation.
Land and Food Systems, Faculty of
Graduate

Le bassin versant de la lagune de Bizerte est occupé par des activités agricoles importantes. L’utilisation des produits phytosanitaires pour traiter les cultures qui entourent ce bassin versant, engendre une détérioration de la qualité des eaux de cet écosystème lagunaire. La surveillance du niveau de pollution dans ces écosystèmes nécessite l’application des approches combinées. Ainsi, dans ce travail une enquête est réalisée afin de déterminer les sources de pollution à cause des activités agricoles et recenser les pesticides employés par les agriculteurs. Pour vérifier la présence des molécules déterminées pendant l’enquête, un diagnostic de la pollution de la colonne d’eau est concrétisé au moyen de deux techniques d’échantillonnage : un échantillonnage ponctuel et un autre passif au moyen des POCIS. Les sédiments sont aussi menacés par ces xénobiotiques, d’où la réalisation d’un screening au niveau de la fraction sédimentaire. Il est pertinent de déterminer le devenir de ces polluants une fois qu’ils sont présents dans l’environnement aquatique. Ainsi, l’étude de leur photodégradation dans la colonne d’eau est achevée dans cette étude. La dégradation de ces polluants peut donner naissance à des sous- produits qui sont plus toxiques que les molécules mères. Une approche écotoxicologique est élaborée dans ce travail pour déterminer la toxicité de ces produits sur une espèce modèle Ostreococcus tauri
The Bizerte Lagoon watershed is surrounded by intense agricultural activities. The use of phytosanitary products to treat the crops that surround this watershed, causes a deterioration of the lagoon water quality. Monitoring the level of pollution in this ecosystem requires the application of combined approaches. Thus, in this work a survey is carried out to determine the sources of pollution due to agricultural activities and to identify pesticides used by farmers. To verify the presence of the molecules determined during the investigation, a diagnosis of water column pollution is carried out using two sampling techniques: grap sampling and passive sampling (POCIS). Sediments are also threatened by these xenobiotics, thus, a screening was carried out in this matrix. It is relevant to determine the fate of these pollutants once they are present in the aquatic environment. Thus, the study of their photodegradation in the water column was carried out. The degradation of these pollutants can give rise to by-products that are more toxic than the parent molecules. An ecotoxicological approach is developed in this work to determine the toxicity of these products on a model species Ostreococcus tauri

In the semi-arid Mediterranean regions, extended reaches of rivers and streams show a recurrent dry phases of varying duration and spatial extent. It is important to study the effects of water stress on riverine ecological processes since freshwater systems are crucial in linking terrestrial and marine environments, My Doctorate thesis research, supported by the European TempQsim project (EVK1-CT2002-00112), was aimed to investigate the dynamics of microbial communities associated to sediments in temporary rivers. In particular, I have been investigating the effects of water stress on the structure and function of benthic bacterial communities and their role in the carbon cycle of rivers characterized by a seasonal hydrologic regime. Bacterial abundance and phylogenetic composition were assessed by molecular techniques, while bacterial activity was estimated by measuring the incorporation rates of radioactive tracers and by immunofluorescence. From a methodological point of view, all applied techniques required a specific optimization phase in order to increase their analytical efficiency. In particular, a detachment procedure to extract and purify bacterial cells from freshwater sediments was optimized by the combined use of different chemical and physical treatments, followed by high-speed density gradient centrifugation using the medium Nycodenz. This procedure was initially applied to analyze the benthic bacterial communities in rivers with stable water flow conditions (Rivers Albegna, Ente, Fiora – Tuscany, Italy; River Cremera – Lazio, Italy). In addition, the efficiency of specific in situ hybridization techniques (Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization with fluorescently monolabeled probes – FISH; Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization with signal amplification by Catalyzed Reporter Deposition – CARD-FISH) was tested with regards to the different physicochemical characteristics of selected sediments (i.e. sediment organic matter and moisture content). In this respect, CARD-FISH protocol was improved to better estimate the occurrence of specific phylogenetic clusters in dry sediments. For the field study, sediments were regularly collected at the river outlet section of the River Mulargia (Sardinia, Italy). A seasonal in-depth study was performed for benthic bacterial composition and activity analyses. Additional tests were performed in artificial microcosms to experimentally describe benthic bacterial responses to drying and rewetting processes, by simulating desiccation and re-inundation of sediments collected from four European temporary rivers (River Mulargia and Tagliamento - Italy; River Krathis - Greece; River Pardiela - Portugal). In a further laboratory experiment, the composition and activity of the bacterial community that primary colonized the water phase was followed in microcosms set up with Mulargia sediments. This study could contribute to better understand the ecological role of those benthic microbes that reside in a state of low-activity in dry sediments and promptly colonize the new incoming water at the end of the dry period. In synthesis, my Doctorate research contributed to a better understanding of the functional role of bacterial community in river sediments. The results could help to elucidate the mechanisms involved in the sediment transformation processes during drought periods, which are attended to increase in length and frequency as a possible effect of climatic changes.

De nombreux produits chimiques se retrouvent dispersés dans l'environnement avec des conséquences parfois néfastes pour les hommes et les écosystèmes. Parmi ces substances figurent les antibiotiques et les stéroïdes hormonaux. Peu de données sont disponibles quant à la présence et le devenir de ces substances dans l'environnement notamment pour le sol, par manque de méthodologies. Nous avons donc mis au point des procédures d'analyse de traces de ces contaminants émergents, dans l'eau et le sol. Nous avons développé des méthodes multi-résidus et inter-familles basées sur des analyses LCMS/ MS. Pour les échantillons aqueux, l'extraction est menée sur phase solide (SPE, OASIS HLB). Les MLQs sont comprises entre 0.09 et 34 ng/L. Pour la matrice solide, la procédure d'extraction est inspirée de la méthode appelée QuEChERS suivie d'une purification SPE. Elle a été validée et des MLQs entre 0.013 et 3 ng/g ont été atteintes. Les tétracyclines et les fluoroquinolones, ont été étudiées séparément car elles ont des propriétés physico-chimiques bien spécifiques les rendant difficiles à extraire correctement du sol avec une méthode inter-familles. La méthode développée sur la matrice sol a permis une étude statistique mettant en exergue l'impact de certains paramètres du sol sur les rendements d'extraction et les effets matrice. Les méthodes ont été appliquées à une étude en colonnes de sol pour obtenir des données sur le transfert, l'accumulation et la dégradation des composés dans le sol
Several chemical products are dispersed in the environment and the consequences can be sometimes harmful for humans and the ecosystems. Among these substances appear the antibiotics and the hormonal steroids. Nowadays, only few data are available on the presence and the fate of these substances in the environment in particular for solid matrices, mainly due to a lack of methodologies. Consequently, methods to analyze traces of « emergent » contaminants in water and soil were carried out. Therefore, multi-residues and inter-families procedures based on LC-MS/MS analysis were established. Concerning the aqueous samples, 23 analytes are extracted with the SPE technique (OASIS HLB). MLQs are between 0.09 and 34 ng/L. For the solid matrix, the extraction procedure of 31 compounds is inspired from the method called QuEChERS and followed by a purification step. This methodology was validated and MLQs between 0.013 and 3 ng/g were obtained. Two antibiotics families, tetracyclines and fluoroquinolones, were studied separately as they have specific physical/chemical properties and are therefore difficult to extract from soil with an inter-families method. Then, the method developed for the soil matrix allowed a statistic study which showed the impact of the soil parameters on the recoveries and matrix effects. Finally, the methodologies were applied to a soil column study which allowed obtaining data on the transfer, accumulation and degradation of the substances in soil

For many years, it has been known that Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a negative risk factor for the development of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). It has been commonly assumed that RA patients’ usage of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) have helped prevent the onset and progression of AD pathogenesis. Furthermore, experiments in animal models of Alzheimer’s disease have looked to inhibit inflammation, and have demonstrated some efficacy against AD-like pathology in these models. Thus many NSAID clinical trials have been performed over the years, but all have proven unsuccessful in AD patients. This suggests that intrinsic factors within RA pathogenesis itself may underlie RA’s protective effect. My dissertation research goal was to investigate this inverse relationship between RA and AD, in order to more precisely pinpoint critical events in AD pathogenesis toward developing therapeutic strategies against AD. It seemed improbable that any secreted factors, produced in RA pathogenesis, could maintain high enough concentrations in the circulatory system to cross the blood brain barrier and inhibit AD pathogenesis, without affecting all other organ systems. It did seem possible that the leukocyte populations induced in RA, could traverse the circulatory system, extravasate into the brain parenchyma, and impede or reverse AD pathogenesis. We thus investigated the colony-stimulating factors, which are up-regulated in RA and which induce most of RA’s leukocytosis, on the pathology and behavior of transgenic AD mice. We found that G-CSF and more significantly, GM-CSF, reduced amyloidosis throughout the treated brain hemisphere one week following bolus intrahippocampal administration into AD mice. We then found that 20 days of subcutaneous injections of GM-CSF (the most amyloid-reducing CSF in the bolus experiment) significantly reduced brain amyloidosis and completely reversed cognitive impairment in aged cognitively-impaired AD mice, while increasing hippocampal synaptic area and microglial density. These findings, along with two decades of accrued safety data using Leukine, the recombinant human GM-CSF analogue, in elderly leukopenic patients, suggested that Leukine should be tested as a treatment to reverse cerebral amyloid pathology and cognitive impairment in AD patients. It was also implied that age-related depressed hematopoiesis may contribute to AD pathogenesis.

Les colonnes à bulles sont des contacteurs gaz-liquide très répandus en milieu industriel, notamment dans des applications de procédés chimiques, biologiques et minéralogiques. Dans la gamme de colonne à bulles disponible, l'airlift sous dépression est une innovation française présentant des caractéristiques très intéressantes pour le pompage hydraulique, le transfert de masse et la séparation des matières en suspension. Ce travail de thèse s'inscrit dans le cadre du développement de cet airlift amélioré, très utilisé dans le milieu industriel. L'objectif de la thèse est la caractérisation hydrodynamique de la colonne airlift sous dépression et l'analyse de ses capacités à assurer la fonction de séparation solide-liquide pour des particules en suspension. Le travail est exclusivement expérimental et le dispositif expérimental est constitué d'une colonne à bulles verticale transparente en plexiglass soumise à une dépression en tête et connectée à un bassin de recirculation hydraulique. L'analyse hydrodynamique a été réalisée à l'aide de capteur de pression différentielle pour l'étude globale et à l'aide d'une double sonde optique pour une caractérisation locale. Les résultats obtenus ont permis d'étudier le régime d'écoulement pour les principaux paramètres : le taux de vide, la vitesse d'ascension et le diamètre des bulles. La Vélocimétrie par Images des Particules a été appliquée pour visualiser et analyser les structures d'écoulement dans le bassin de recirculation. Les capacités extractives de la colonne ont été étudiées en eau douce avec ajout de produits tensioactifs. La caséine soluble et le Methyl Iso Butyl Carbinol (MIBC) sont les deux tensioactifs qui ont donné les meilleurs résultats en termes de séparation solide-liquide des matières en suspension. Ce travail a contribué à la compréhension de l'hydrodynamique des airlift sous dépression et a permis de mettre en évidence les potentialités de cette colonne dans le processus de séparation solide-liquide. Le travail ouvre aussi la voie à la modélisation numérique de l'hydrodynamique de la colonne en s'appuyant sur les résultats expérimentaux
Bubble columns are gas-liquid contactors widely used in industry, especially in chemical, biological and mineralogical process applications. In the range of bubble columns available, the vacuum airlift is a French innovation with very interesting characteristics for hydraulic pumping, mass transfer and suspended matter separation. This thesis work is part of the development of this improved airlift, which is widely used in the industrial environment. The objective of the thesis is the hydrodynamic characterization of the airlift column under vacuum and analysis of its capacities to ensure the solid-liquid separation function. This work is exclusively experimental and the experimental setup is a vertical bubble column in plexiglass under vacuum and connected to a recirculation basin. The hydrodynamic analysis was carried out using a differential pressure sensor for the global study and using a double optical probe for local characterization. Results obtained made it possible to study flow regime. The main parameters obtained are the void fraction, superficial velocity and bubbles diameter. Particle Image Velocimetry is applied to visualize and analyze the flow structures in the recirculation basin. The extracting capacities of the column were studied in tap water with the addition of surfactants. Soluble casein and Methyl Iso Butyl Carbinol (MIBC) are the two surfactants that have given the best results in terms of solid-liquid separation of suspended matter. This work contributed to the understanding hydrodynamics for vacuum airlift column and helped to highlight the potential of this column in the solid-liquid separation process. This work also opens the way to numerical modelling of airlift column hydrodynamics from experimental results

Le sondeur multifaisceaux (SMF) est l'une des technologies d'acoustique sous-marine les plus avancées pour l'étude des fonds et de la colonne d'eau. Il requiert une réelle expertise pour son déploiement sur le terrain ainsi que pour l'élaboration de cartographies à partir des différentes données acquises. Ces traitements sont souvent chronophages en raison de la quantité de données acquises et demandent à être automatisés pour alléger le travail à l'hydrographe. C'est ce sur quoi portent les travaux réalisés durant cette thèse. Après des rappels sur des notions d'acoustique sous-marine, le fonctionnement du SMF est décrit et les types de données manipulées tout au long des traitements sont présentés. Le manuscrit s'articule ensuite autour de deux thématiques ˸ la cartographie bathymétrique et la cartographie biocénotique. Les développements sont intégrés dans les logiciels de l'entreprise Seaviews pour laquelle les travaux sont réalisés. Ils répondent à des besoins particuliers de l'entreprise.En ce qui concerne la cartographie bathymétrique, la donnée bathymétrique doit être préalablement triée pour écarter les sondes aberrantes et éviter qu'elles ne pénalisent la précision topographique. Ce tri d'innombrables sondes est une tâche que réalisent les hydrographes, assistés aujourd'hui d'outils numériques. Nous proposerons une méthode statistique rapide pour trier les sondes tout en réalisant une carte de profondeurs marines. Ce qui amène à se demander si les images de la colonne d'eau acquises également par le sondeur ne seraient pas exploitables pour déduire une bathymétrie exempte d'aberration. Nous testerons cette hypothèse à l'aide de l'apprentissage profond (deep learning) et en particulier par des réseaux de neurones convolutifs qui ont permis des progrès considérables en vision par ordinateur. La cartographie des habitats marins (les biocénoses) est un travail de classification de la nature des fonds à partir des données acoustiques du SMF en concordance avec les espèces vivant sur les lieux. La société Seaviews a développé une méthode de préparation des données SMF pour l'analyse des habitats. Nous nous orientons vers des méthodes de classification des habitats, à partir de ces données, par des techniques d'apprentissage automatique (machine learning). Plusieurs méthodes sont mises en place et testées, puis une zone d'étude est choisie pour évaluer et comparer les résultats des différentes approches
Among underwater acoustic technologies, multibeam echo sounder (MBES) is one of the most advanced tool to study and map the underwater floors and the above water column. Its deployment on-site requires expertise so as the whole data processing to map the information. These processing are very time-consuming due to the massive quantity of recorded data and thus needs to be automatised to shorten and alleviate the hydrographer's task. This PhD research works focus on the automatisation of the current activities in Seaviews society.After some reminders on the underwater acoustic sciences, the MBES operating is described as well the produced data that will be manipulated throughout the developments. This document presents two thematics˸ bathymetric (depths) and marine habitats mapping. The developments are integrated into the Seaviews' software in the aim to be used by all the employees.About seafloor depths mapping, the bathymetric sounding has to be sorted to avoid that the outlier errors distort the results. Sorting the uncountable measures is cumbersome but necessary, although the hydrographers are today happily computed-assisted. We propose a fast statistical method to exclude the outliers while mapping the information. This leads to wonder if the water column imagery would be workable to deduce the bathymetry without failure. We will test this hypothesis with some technics of deep learning, especially with convolutional neural networks.The marine habitats mapping is a seabed nature classification according to the local life. Seaviews has worked on a way to prepare MBES data and habitats analysis. Concerning the method of classification itself, we move towards machine learning technics. Several methods are implemented and assessed, and then an area is chosen to evaluate and compare the results

碩士
國立清華大學
核子工程與科學研究所
98
In a pressurized water reactor (PWR), the fuel assemblies must be reloaded after operating a period of time. Loading pattern (LP) was designed by engineer based on experience. Because the computer capability is greatly improved in recent years, it is possible to search loading pattern using some algorithms. Ant Colony System is a metaheuristic method which is efficient to combinatorial optimization problem. In this study, three kinds of algorithms, i.e., Rank-Based System (RAS), Max-Min Ant System (MMAS), Ant-Q was adopted to search loading pattern of PWR. Maanshan nuclear power plant cycle 17,18 and 19 was applied to demonstrate the capability of the algorithms. Safety and economy must be considered in loading pattern design. The main safety constraints include hot channel factor (FΔH) and moderator temperature coefficient (MTC) and the economic consideration is cycle length and cost of fuel. The LP was mirror symmetry in quarter-core and quarter-core rotational symmetry in the full core. The search procedure contained two steps. The first step was to permute fuel assemblies (FA) in 1/8 region and the second step was to perform rotation configuration of these FAs. The developed program was coded with C. SIMULATE-3 code was used to calculate core status. In Maanshan Cycle 19 case, most of the loading patterns searched by RAS, MMAS and Ant-Q satisfied the safety limits. Generally speaking, MMAS had better performance. The results of Maanshan Cycle 17, 18 also satisfied safety limits, which showed this tool can be applied to other cycles. In addition, the design whose four FAs were placed by lower enrichment FAs also reached the target cycle length. Also, parallel computing was tested to reduce computation time.

碩士
國立臺北科技大學
工業工程與管理系
107
Our economy has grown more vigorously than ever before, Taiwan’s industrial has been accompanied by pollution and damage to water resources which affect the source of drinking water for the people. Therefore people have the purchasing behavior of water, and finally derived the drinking water transportation industry for the people. Due to the different frequency and capacity of demand in various regions, how to effectively distribute is an important issue. This research uses P Company in Taichung as an example to define a case study as a vehicle defined as Period Vehicle Routing Problem (PVRP) and Heterogeneous Fixed Fleet Vehicle Routing Problem (HFFVRP). In the course of the process, construct a mathematical model based on PVRP and HFFVRP, solve the initial scheduling by Insertion Methods and The Nearest Neighbor Methods, improve the cycle problem by the Tabu Search (TS), and finally solve the distribution route by using the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). The goal is to minimize the driving cost so that the operator can efficiently plan the distribution route and the distribution sequence of each demand point.

碩士
華梵大學
工業工程與經營資訊學系碩士班
96
This study applied an ant colony system (ACS) to solve the wafer probing scheduling problem (WPSP). WPSP is a variation of the parallel machine scheduling problem (PMSP) with sequence dependent setup time (SDST) and due date restriction. The objective of this study is minimizing the total setup time without violating any constrains. To evaluate the performance of ACS, 480 instances were generated based on the characteristics of a test floor. The computational results showed that ACS not only outperformed WSA for each testing instance groups, but also reduced number of machine used. Therefore, it is believed that the proposed ACS is an effective method to solving WPSPs.

碩士
國立清華大學
工程與系統科學系
101
In a pressurized water reactor (PWR), the fuel assemblies must be reloaded after operating for one and half year, and thus the loading pattern (LP) needs to be redesigned to achieve the longest cycle length and satisfy the safety requirements. The LP design is accomplished by engineers based on their experience. Since the computer capability has been greatly improved, designing the LP by computer become possible. Our laboratory had applied Ant Colony Algorithms to automatically design the LP a couple years ago, but the time effort still need to be improved. In this research, the computational time that the LP design takes can be dramatically reduced by combining Ant Colony Algorithms and Tabu Search (TS). This research use C language to write the program and simulate the core status by SIMULATE-3 under UNIX environment. There’re two stages to design a LP. First, search a rather good fuel loading pattern using Ant Colony Algorithm and 2D SIMULATE-3 calculation. Second, adjust the loading pattern to fulfill the requirements using Tabu Search. There’re two ways to adjust the LP: one is “swap”, the other is “rotation”. The experimental results show that a loading pattern design can be accomplished automatically within a rather short time.

博士
國立清華大學
工程與系統科學系
99
The reload design of a boiling water reactor (BWR) consists of fuel loading pattern design and control rod pattern design. The fuel loading pattern design is to permute the fuel assemblies so that shutdown margin requirement is fulfilled and the thermal limit margin is good enough to guarantee the satisfactory control rod pattern design. The control rod pattern design is to determine the inserted depth of control rods at each exposure point so that the thermal limits such as minimum critical power ratio (MCPR), maximum linear heat generation rate (MLHGR), and maximum average planar linear heat generation rate (MAPLHGR) meet the margin requirement and shutdown margin and cycle length are fulfilled. Automatic design of boiling water reactor loading pattern and control rod pattern were developed using the rank-based ant system (RAS) which is a variety of ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm. The ACO algorithm is an effective optimization algorithm for combinatorial optimization problem and the heuristic rules of ACO algorithm were adopted to reduce search space and computation time. In loading pattern design, to reduce design complexity, fuel assemblies (FAs) were chosen to load the positions of one-eighth core geometry using probabilistic solution construction of ACO algorithm and then the corresponding fuel assemblies were loaded into the other part of the core. When the pattern was determined, Haling cycle length, the thermal limits at the end of cycle, and beginning of cycle (BOC) shutdown margin (SDM) were calculated using SIMULATE-3 code, which were used to evaluate the loading pattern for updating pheromone concentration of ACO algorithm. In control rod pattern design which followed either the A2-B1-A1-B2 or A1-B2-A2-B1 sequence in this study. After the control rod pattern was determined, the axial power distribution, effective multiplication factor (keff), shutdown margin, and three thermal limits were calculated using SIMULATE-3 code, which were then used to evaluate the control rod pattern and update the pheromone concentration. The developed design methodology was demonstrated using two fuel reload cycle of Kuosheng nuclear power plant. The results show that the designed satisfactory reload design with an acceptable cycle length can be achieved within a reasonable computation time.

碩士
國立清華大學
工程與系統科學系
97
During power ascension in boiling water reactor, both economic benefits and operation safety must be considered. For economic consideration, it should bring up the power to the full power level as soon as possible. As for the operation safety, it should ensure the fuel rod integrity under any operation condition and thus have to satisfy all the operation safety limits, including minimum critical power ratio, maximum linear heat generation rate, maximum average planar linear heat generation rate, fuel envelope, power oscillation, and so forth. For the time being, this task is designed by nuclear engineers who use POWERPLEX-III to figure out control rod withdrawal, xenon waiting, and watching the margin of the operation safety limits during the power ascension, which must be finished before start up operation. The goal of this research is to use ant colony optimization algorithm to search the power ascension path, in which using power search mode of SIMULATE-3 to calculate core status. In the algorithm, solution component set contains all the possible action, i.e., control rod withdrawal and core flow rate increment. To consider the thermal limits, power oscillation, maximum control rod line, envelope and so forth during the path search, those terms were formulated as the penalty terms of the quality function. The heuristic information was used to eliminate the unreasonable action when constructing solution. Using SIMULATE-3 to calculate the core status along the power ascension path, and then the quality function was calculated. The pheromone concentration was updated according to the quality function value, until the program converge to a best solution. The developed program was demonstrated by two cycle and the results show that the goal was achieved.

碩士
國立中興大學
獸醫學系暨研究所
100
Clinical evidences revealed an overlap of neural mechanisms mediated by bowel and lower urinary tract (LUT) dysfunctions, a phenomenon known as cross-organ sensitization (COS). Although studies have been demonstrated that stress could modulate the neurotransmission of visceral sensation, through the colonic afferent pathway, the effects of stress on COS have yet been established. To clarify whether chronic stress was involved in the colon-bladder crosstalk induction or/and maintain, we performed cystometrogram in response to intracolonic mustard oil (MO) instillation in female Wistar-Kyoto rats exposed to daily water avoidance stress (WAS, 1 hour/day for 10 days) or sham treatment (WASham). In addition, Quantitative real-time PCR (Q-PCR), Western blot, Immunoprecipitation (IP) and Immunfluorescence (IF) were used to assess the protein/mRNA expression at the lumbosacral dorsal horn (L6-S1). WAS demonstrated the enhanced colonic motility, but no effect on the baseline voiding function and time-dependent enhancement spinal p90 ribosomal S6 kinases 2 (RSK2) protein/mRNA levels in spinal cord neuron. Intracolonic MO dose-dependently decreased intrercontraction intervals (ICIs) and threshold pressure (TP) accompanied with enhanced spinal phosphorylated RSK2 (pRSK2) and phosphorylated NR2B (pNR2B) expression as well as RSK2-PSD-95 and PSD-95-NR2B copreciptitaion in WAS but WAsham animals. Intrathecal kaempferol (a RSK2 antagonist, 10uM, 10ul), bilateral adrenalectomy and subcutaneous RU38486 (a glucocorticoid antagonist, 40 mg/kg) prevented MO-induced bladder hyperactivity and attenuated the said protein/mRNA expression and coprecipitation in WAS group. Taken together, these results suggest spinal RSK2 activation downstream stress-related glucocorticoid release from the adrenal cortex to mediate WAS-dependent sensitization of colon-bladder crosstalk via the spinal PSD-95/NR2B cascade, and offer the possibility of developing pharmacological strategies for stress-related pelvic pain.

碩士
亞洲大學
食品營養與保健生技學系
106
According to statistics from the Health promotion Administration, Ministry of Health and Welfare, colorectal cancer is the most commonly occurring cancer in Taiwan. About 10,000 people get colorectal cancer each year, and about one in five patients are in the fourth phase. Invasion and metastasis of cancer cells are often one of the major causes of cancer death and lead to poor prognosis. Invasion is related to the breakdown of cell stroma, cell attachment and mobility changes. Studies have found that fruiting bodies of Grifola frondosa and mycelium are rich in nutrients, which have significant effects on diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, etc., in which the polysaccharide contained in Grifola frondosa has the immunity in the stomach and anti-tumor effect. In this experiment, grey and white Grifola frondosa water extracts with invasive human colorectal cancer cell line LoVo, respectively, 24,48 hours MTT assay and find a safe dose to wound healing assay and transwell migration two an experiment was conducted to evaluate the ability of Grifola frondosa water extracts to inhibit the metastasis of colorectal cancer cells. The experimental results showed that after LoVo cells were cultured for 24,48 hours under different doses of grey and white Grifola frondosa water extracts, the survival rate of LoVo cells decreased significantly with the increase of the extract content, The Grifola frondosa water extracts safe concentration of 0.8 mg / mL or less. In the wound healing assay and transwell migration, the two kinds of Grifola frondosa water extracts were treated for 48 hours, respectively, showing dose-effect, and two kinds of Grifola frondosa water extracts significantly inhibited cell creep distance and transwell migration degree. Western blot analysis also showed that Grifola frondosa water extracts can reduce the protein expression of N-cadherin, β-catenin, Vimentin, Snail and Slug, which are involved in the process of EMT. From the above experimental results we can see that the low concentration of grey and white Grifola frondosa water extracts rough extract effectively inhibit the function of LoVo metastasis may have the ability to assist the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer.

碩士
國立臺灣海洋大學
海洋生物研究所
105
Skeletonema is a dominant diatom genus in the coastal waters near Matsu Islands. Skeletonema contains nitrate transporter genes (Nrt2), the expression level of which reflects the physiological status of this diatom in the utilization of ammonium and nitrate. In order to correctly interpret metatranscriptomes of phytoplankton in Matsu waters and to design highly efficient primers for quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), single-colony sequencing was employed to identify genes belonging to the same species within Skeletonema. In June and July 2016, plankton samples were collected at several stations near Nangan Island, Matsu. From these samples, 12 Skeletonema colonies were isolated with a micromanipulator. Next, the total amount of DNA in each colony was increased by multiple substitution amplification (MDA). Using the amplified DNA as templates, gene fragments of 18S rRNA, rbcL, Nrt2 and EFL were cloned by PCR and sequenced. Among them, 18S rRNA and rbcL sequences were used to confirm the taxonomical association of individual colonies, and the corresponding Nrt2 and EFL sequences were regarded as genes belonging to the verified species. In the 12 Skeletonema colonies, a total of 48 sequences were obtained for genes mentioned above. According to 18S rRNA and rbcL sequences, there were 7 colonies identified as S. subsalsum and the other 4 colonies were S. tropicum. Each colony was then sequenced to reveal Nrt2 sequences. The results showed that S. subsalsum and S. tropicum each contained two forms of homologous Nrt2 genes. As for the reference gene, only one EFL sequence was cloned from the S. tropicum coloies. In contrast, EFL sequences belonging to S. subsalsum could be categorized into four groups on the phylogenetic tree. Through these sequencing efforts, sequences from individual Skeletonema colonies were used to identify genes of unknown species in metatranscriptomes, and species-specific qPCR primers could be designed with more confidence.

Most of the real world problems in water resources involve nonlinear formulations in their solution construction. Obtaining optimal solutions for large scale nonlinear optimization problems is always a challenging task. The conventional methods, such as linear programming (LP), dynamic programming (DP) and nonlinear programming (NLP) may often face problems in solving them. Recently, there has been an increasing interest in biologically motivated adaptive systems for solving real world optimization problems. The multi-member, stochastic approach followed in Evolutionary Algorithms (EA) makes them less susceptible to getting trapped at local optimal solutions, and they can search easier for global optimal solutions. In this thesis, efficient optimization techniques based on swarm intelligence and evolutionary computation principles have been proposed for single and multi-objective optimization in water resource systems. To overcome the inherent limitations of conventional optimization techniques, meta-heuristic techniques like ant colony optimization (ACO), particle swarm optimization (PSO) and differential evolution (DE) approaches are developed for single and multi-objective optimization. These methods are then applied to few case studies in planning and operation of reservoir systems in India. First a methodology based on ant colony optimization (ACO) principles is investigated for reservoir operation. The utility of the ACO technique for obtaining optimal solutions is explored for large scale nonlinear optimization problems, by solving a reservoir operation problem for monthly operation over a long-time horizon of 36 years. It is found that this methodology relaxes the over-year storage constraints and provides efficient operating policy that can be implemented over a long period of time. By using ACO technique for reservoir operation problems, some of the limitations of traditional nonlinear optimization methods are surmounted and thus the performance of the reservoir system is improved. To achieve faster optimization in water resource systems, a novel technique based on swarm intelligence, namely particle swarm optimization (PSO) has been proposed. In general, PSO has distinctly faster convergence towards global optimal solutions for numerical optimization. However, it is found that the technique has the problem of getting trapped to local optima while solving real world complex problems. To overcome such drawbacks, the standard particle swarm optimization technique has been further improved by incorporating a novel elitist-mutation (EM) mechanism into the algorithm. This strategy provides proper exploration and exploitation throughout the iterations. The improvement is demonstrated by applying it to a multi-purpose single reservoir problem and also to a multi reservoir system. The results showed robust performance of the EM-PSO approach in yielding global optimal solutions. Most of the practical problems in water resources are not only nonlinear in their formulations but are also multi-objective in nature. For multi-objective optimization, generating feasible efficient Pareto-optimal solutions is always a complicated task. In the past, many attempts with various conventional approaches were made to solve water resources problems and some of them are reported as successful. However, in using the conventional linear programming (LP) and nonlinear programming (NLP) methods, they usually involve essential approximations, especially while dealing withdiscontinuous, non-differentiable, non-convex and multi-objective functions. Most of these methods consider multiple objective functions using weighted approach or constrained approach without considering all the objectives simultaneously. Also, the conventional approaches use a point-by-point search approach, in which the outcome of these methods is a single optimal solution. So they may require a large number of simulation runs to arrive at a good Pareto optimal front. One of the major goals in multi-objective optimization is to find a set of well distributed optimal solutions along the true Pareto optimal front. The classical optimization methods often fail to attain a good and true Pareto optimal front due to accretion of the above problems. To overcome such drawbacks of the classical methods, there has recently been an increasing interest in evolutionary computation methods for solving real world multi-objective problems. In this thesis, some novel approaches for multi-objective optimization are developed based on swarm intelligence and evolutionary computation principles. By incorporating Pareto optimality principles into particle swarm optimization algorithm, a novel approach for multi-objective optimization has been developed. To obtain efficient Pareto-frontiers, along with proper selection scheme and diversity preserving mechanisms, an efficient elitist mutation strategy is proposed. The developed elitist-mutated multi-objective particle swarm optimization (EM-MOPSO) technique is tested for various numerical test problems and engineering design problems. It is found that the EM-MOPSO algorithm resulting in improved performance over a state-of-the-art multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA). The utility of EM-MOPSO technique for water resources optimization is demonstrated through application to a case study, to obtain optimal trade-off solutions to a reservoir operation problem. Through multi-objective analysis for reservoir operation policies, it is found that the technique can offer wide range of efficient alternatives along with flexibility to the decision maker. In general, most of the water resources optimization problems involve interdependence relations among the various decision variables. By using differential evolution (DE) scheme, which has a proven ability of effective handling of this kind of interdependence relationships, an efficient multi-objective solver, namely multi-objective differential evolution (MODE) is proposed. The single objective differential evolution algorithm is extended to multi-objective optimization by integrating various operators like, Pareto-optimality, non-dominated sorting, an efficient selection strategy, crowding distance operator for maintaining diversity, an external elite archive for storing non- dominated solutions and an effective constraint handling scheme. First, different variations of DE approaches for multi-objective optimization are evaluated through several benchmark test problems for numerical optimization. The developed MODE algorithm showed improved performance over a standard MOEA, namely non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm–II (NSGA-II). Then MODE is applied to a case study of Hirakud reservoir operation problem to derive operational tradeoffs in the reservoir system optimization. It is found that MODE is achieving robust performance in evaluation for the water resources problem, and that the interdependence relationships among the decision variables can be effectively modeled using differential evolution operators. For optimal utilization of scarce water resources, an integrated operational model is developed for reservoir operation for irrigation of multiple crops. The model integrates the dynamics associated with the water released from a reservoir to the actual water utilized by the crops at farm level. It also takes into account the non-linear relationship of root growth, soil heterogeneity, soil moisture dynamics for multiple crops and yield response to water deficit at various growth stages of the crops. Two types of objective functions are evaluated for the model by applying to a case study of Malaprabha reservoir project. It is found that both the cropping area and economic benefits from the crops need to be accounted for in the objective function. In this connection, a multi-objective frame work is developed and solved using the MODE algorithm to derive simultaneous policies for irrigation cropping pattern and reservoir operation. It is found that the proposed frame work can provide effective and flexible policies for decision maker aiming at maximization of overall benefits from the irrigation system. For efficient management of water resources projects, there is always a great necessity to accurately forecast the hydrologic variables. To handle uncertain behavior of hydrologic variables, soft computing based artificial neural networks (ANNs) and fuzzy inference system (FIS) models are proposed for reservoir inflow forecasting. The forecast models are developed using large scale climate inputs like indices of El-Nino Southern Oscialltion (ENSO), past information on rainfall in the catchment area and inflows into the reservoir. In this purpose, back propagation neural network (BPNN), hybrid particle swarm optimization trained neural network (PSONN) and adaptive network fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) models have been developed. The developed models are applied for forecasting inflows into the Malaprabha reservoir. The performances of these models are evaluated using standard performance measures and it is found that the hybrid PSONN model is performing better than BPNN and ANFIS models. Finally by adopting PSONN model for inflow forecasting and EMPSO technique for solving the reservoir operation model, the practical utility of the different models developed in the thesis are demonstrated through application to a real time reservoir operation problem. The developed methodologies can certainly help in better planning and operation of the scarce water resources.

Most of the real world problems in water resources involve nonlinear formulations in their solution construction. Obtaining optimal solutions for large scale nonlinear optimization problems is always a challenging task. The conventional methods, such as linear programming (LP), dynamic programming (DP) and nonlinear programming (NLP) may often face problems in solving them. Recently, there has been an increasing interest in biologically motivated adaptive systems for solving real world optimization problems. The multi-member, stochastic approach followed in Evolutionary Algorithms (EA) makes them less susceptible to getting trapped at local optimal solutions, and they can search easier for global optimal solutions. In this thesis, efficient optimization techniques based on swarm intelligence and evolutionary computation principles have been proposed for single and multi-objective optimization in water resource systems. To overcome the inherent limitations of conventional optimization techniques, meta-heuristic techniques like ant colony optimization (ACO), particle swarm optimization (PSO) and differential evolution (DE) approaches are developed for single and multi-objective optimization. These methods are then applied to few case studies in planning and operation of reservoir systems in India. First a methodology based on ant colony optimization (ACO) principles is investigated for reservoir operation. The utility of the ACO technique for obtaining optimal solutions is explored for large scale nonlinear optimization problems, by solving a reservoir operation problem for monthly operation over a long-time horizon of 36 years. It is found that this methodology relaxes the over-year storage constraints and provides efficient operating policy that can be implemented over a long period of time. By using ACO technique for reservoir operation problems, some of the limitations of traditional nonlinear optimization methods are surmounted and thus the performance of the reservoir system is improved. To achieve faster optimization in water resource systems, a novel technique based on swarm intelligence, namely particle swarm optimization (PSO) has been proposed. In general, PSO has distinctly faster convergence towards global optimal solutions for numerical optimization. However, it is found that the technique has the problem of getting trapped to local optima while solving real world complex problems. To overcome such drawbacks, the standard particle swarm optimization technique has been further improved by incorporating a novel elitist-mutation (EM) mechanism into the algorithm. This strategy provides proper exploration and exploitation throughout the iterations. The improvement is demonstrated by applying it to a multi-purpose single reservoir problem and also to a multi reservoir system. The results showed robust performance of the EM-PSO approach in yielding global optimal solutions. Most of the practical problems in water resources are not only nonlinear in their formulations but are also multi-objective in nature. For multi-objective optimization, generating feasible efficient Pareto-optimal solutions is always a complicated task. In the past, many attempts with various conventional approaches were made to solve water resources problems and some of them are reported as successful. However, in using the conventional linear programming (LP) and nonlinear programming (NLP) methods, they usually involve essential approximations, especially while dealing withdiscontinuous, non-differentiable, non-convex and multi-objective functions. Most of these methods consider multiple objective functions using weighted approach or constrained approach without considering all the objectives simultaneously. Also, the conventional approaches use a point-by-point search approach, in which the outcome of these methods is a single optimal solution. So they may require a large number of simulation runs to arrive at a good Pareto optimal front. One of the major goals in multi-objective optimization is to find a set of well distributed optimal solutions along the true Pareto optimal front. The classical optimization methods often fail to attain a good and true Pareto optimal front due to accretion of the above problems. To overcome such drawbacks of the classical methods, there has recently been an increasing interest in evolutionary computation methods for solving real world multi-objective problems. In this thesis, some novel approaches for multi-objective optimization are developed based on swarm intelligence and evolutionary computation principles. By incorporating Pareto optimality principles into particle swarm optimization algorithm, a novel approach for multi-objective optimization has been developed. To obtain efficient Pareto-frontiers, along with proper selection scheme and diversity preserving mechanisms, an efficient elitist mutation strategy is proposed. The developed elitist-mutated multi-objective particle swarm optimization (EM-MOPSO) technique is tested for various numerical test problems and engineering design problems. It is found that the EM-MOPSO algorithm resulting in improved performance over a state-of-the-art multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA). The utility of EM-MOPSO technique for water resources optimization is demonstrated through application to a case study, to obtain optimal trade-off solutions to a reservoir operation problem. Through multi-objective analysis for reservoir operation policies, it is found that the technique can offer wide range of efficient alternatives along with flexibility to the decision maker. In general, most of the water resources optimization problems involve interdependence relations among the various decision variables. By using differential evolution (DE) scheme, which has a proven ability of effective handling of this kind of interdependence relationships, an efficient multi-objective solver, namely multi-objective differential evolution (MODE) is proposed. The single objective differential evolution algorithm is extended to multi-objective optimization by integrating various operators like, Pareto-optimality, non-dominated sorting, an efficient selection strategy, crowding distance operator for maintaining diversity, an external elite archive for storing non- dominated solutions and an effective constraint handling scheme. First, different variations of DE approaches for multi-objective optimization are evaluated through several benchmark test problems for numerical optimization. The developed MODE algorithm showed improved performance over a standard MOEA, namely non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm–II (NSGA-II). Then MODE is applied to a case study of Hirakud reservoir operation problem to derive operational tradeoffs in the reservoir system optimization. It is found that MODE is achieving robust performance in evaluation for the water resources problem, and that the interdependence relationships among the decision variables can be effectively modeled using differential evolution operators. For optimal utilization of scarce water resources, an integrated operational model is developed for reservoir operation for irrigation of multiple crops. The model integrates the dynamics associated with the water released from a reservoir to the actual water utilized by the crops at farm level. It also takes into account the non-linear relationship of root growth, soil heterogeneity, soil moisture dynamics for multiple crops and yield response to water deficit at various growth stages of the crops. Two types of objective functions are evaluated for the model by applying to a case study of Malaprabha reservoir project. It is found that both the cropping area and economic benefits from the crops need to be accounted for in the objective function. In this connection, a multi-objective frame work is developed and solved using the MODE algorithm to derive simultaneous policies for irrigation cropping pattern and reservoir operation. It is found that the proposed frame work can provide effective and flexible policies for decision maker aiming at maximization of overall benefits from the irrigation system. For efficient management of water resources projects, there is always a great necessity to accurately forecast the hydrologic variables. To handle uncertain behavior of hydrologic variables, soft computing based artificial neural networks (ANNs) and fuzzy inference system (FIS) models are proposed for reservoir inflow forecasting. The forecast models are developed using large scale climate inputs like indices of El-Nino Southern Oscialltion (ENSO), past information on rainfall in the catchment area and inflows into the reservoir. In this purpose, back propagation neural network (BPNN), hybrid particle swarm optimization trained neural network (PSONN) and adaptive network fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) models have been developed. The developed models are applied for forecasting inflows into the Malaprabha reservoir. The performances of these models are evaluated using standard performance measures and it is found that the hybrid PSONN model is performing better than BPNN and ANFIS models. Finally by adopting PSONN model for inflow forecasting and EMPSO technique for solving the reservoir operation model, the practical utility of the different models developed in the thesis are demonstrated through application to a real time reservoir operation problem. The developed methodologies can certainly help in better planning and operation of the scarce water resources.

Yue Gar-Lee Grace.
Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2003.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-120).
Abstracts in English and Chinese.
Abstract (English version) --- p.i
Abstract (Chinese version) --- p.iii
Acknowledgements --- p.v
Table of contents --- p.vi
List of figures --- p.x
List of tables --- p.xiii
List of abbreviations --- p.xiv
Chapter Chapter I: --- Introduction --- p.1
Chapter 1.1. --- Transepithelial electrolyte transport in colon --- p.1
Chapter 1.1.1. --- Intestinal fluid secretion --- p.1
Chapter 1.1.2. --- Cellular mechanism of chloride secretion --- p.3
Chapter 1.2. --- Biological activities of flavonoids --- p.6
Chapter 1.2.1. --- Classification and general activities of flavonoids --- p.6
Chapter 1.2.2. --- Bioavailability and pharmacokinetic properties of flavonoids --- p.8
Chapter 1.3. --- "What is Scutellariae radix""?" --- p.9
Chapter 1.3.1. --- Usage in Traditional Chinese Medicine --- p.9
Chapter 1.3.2. --- Relationship with Coptidis rhizoma --- p.9
Chapter 1.4. --- Effect of flavonoids on gastrointestinal activities --- p.12
Chapter 1.4.1. --- Genistein and quercetin --- p.12
Chapter 1.4.2. --- Baicalein --- p.12
Chapter 1.5. --- Possible intracellular signaling pathway involved in the secretory response by Scutellariae radix (SR) in T84 cells --- p.14
Chapter 1.5.1. --- Human colonic T84 cell --- p.14
Chapter 1.5.2. --- Intracellular signaling pathway --- p.14
Chapter 1.6. --- Aim of study --- p.17
Chapter Chapter II : --- Methods and Materials --- p.18
Chapter II.1. --- Culture technique of the T84 cells --- p.18
Chapter II.2. --- Simultaneous measurement of short-circuit current (Isc) and intracellular calcium ([Ca2+]i) --- p.21
Chapter II.2.1. --- Experimental setup --- p.21
Chapter II.2.2. --- Preparation of the permeable supports --- p.23
Chapter II.2.3. --- Cell seeding --- p.27
Chapter II.2.4. --- Dye loading --- p.27
Chapter II.2.5. --- Simultaneous measurement of Isc and [Ca2+]i- --- p.30
Chapter II.3. --- Conventional short-circuit current (Isc) measurement --- p.34
Chapter II.3.1. --- Experimental setup --- p.34
Chapter II.3.2. --- Preparation of the permeable supports --- p.36
Chapter II.3.3. --- Cell seeding --- p.36
Chapter II.3.4. --- Measurement --- p.38
Chapter II.4. --- Measurement of cAMP --- p.39
Chapter II.5. --- Solutions and chemicals --- p.40
Chapter II.6. --- Statistical analysis --- p.42
Chapter Chapter III : --- Results --- p.43
Chapter III. 1. --- Effects of baicalein and its interaction with calcium and cAMP-dependent secretagogues --- p.43
Chapter III. 1.1. --- Effects of baicalein on baseline Isc and [Ca2+]i --- p.43
Chapter III. 1.2. --- Ionic basis of baicalein-evoked Isc --- p.43
Chapter III. 1.3. --- Effect of baicalein on carbachol-evoked Isc --- p.47
Chapter III. 1.4. --- "Effect of baicalein on Isc stimulated by another calcium mobilizing agonist, histamine" --- p.58
Chapter III. 1.5. --- Effect of carbachol on Isc response stimulated by baicalein --- p.61
Chapter III. 1.6. --- Chronic effect of baicalein on carbachol-evoked increase in Isc --- p.63
Chapter III.1.7. --- Interaction of baicalein with forskolin --- p.65
Chapter III.2. --- Effects of baicalein on cAMP generation in T84 cells --- p.69
Chapter III.2.1. --- Effects of baicalein on cAMP production --- p.69
Chapter III.2.2 --- Effects of baicalein on forskolin-induced cAMP production --- p.70
Chapter III.3. --- Effects of Scutellariae radix extract on ion transport activities in T84 cells --- p.73
Chapter III.3.1. --- Effects of Scutellariae radix extract (SRE) on baseline Isc --- p.73
Chapter III.3.2. --- Ionic basis of SRE-evoked Isc --- p.77
Chapter III.3.3. --- Effects of adenylate cyclase inhibitor and PKA inhibitor --- p.77
Chapter III.3.4. --- PKC modulation --- p.86
Chapter III.3.5. --- Involvement of intracellular calcium --- p.86
Chapter III.3.6. --- Involvement of cAMP --- p.94
Chapter Chapter IV : --- Discussion --- p.98
Chapter IV. 1. --- Effects of baicalein on ion transport in human colonic T84 cells --- p.98
Chapter IV. 1.1. --- Roles of baicalein in chloride secretion in intestinal epithelial cells --- p.98
Chapter IV. 1.2. --- Potentiation effect of baicalein on calcium-mediated chloride secretion --- p.100
Chapter IV. 1.3. --- Potentiation effect of carbachol on baicalein-stimulated chloride secretion --- p.102
Chapter IV. 1.4. --- Interaction between baicalein and forskolin --- p.104
Chapter IV.2. --- Effects of Scutellariae radix extract on ion transport in human colonic T84 cells --- p.107
Chapter IV.2.1 --- Characteristcs of Isc induced by Scutellariae radix extract --- p.107
Chapter IV.2.2. --- Possible signaling mechanism involved in Isc induced by Scutellariae radix extract --- p.108
Chapter IV.3. --- Comparison of the effects on ion transport in human colonic T84 cells produced by baicalein and Scutellariae radix extract --- p.110
Chapter IV.3.1. --- Properties of baicalein- and Scutellariae radix extract- induced Isc response --- p.110
Chapter IV.3.2. --- Summary --- p.111
Chapter Chapter V : --- References --- p.113
Publications --- p.120