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- Title
- WEB-BASED CONTEMPORANEOUS DELAY ANALYSIS
- Creator
- Pektas, Murat
- Date
- 2011-11-22, 2011-12
- Description
-
The construction industry is fragmented due to the many stakeholders and the diverse phases involved in a construction project. On time,...
Show moreThe construction industry is fragmented due to the many stakeholders and the diverse phases involved in a construction project. On time, within budget, with required quality are essentials of a successful project. However, most construction projects are faced with delays, which obstruct success. To recover the damage caused by delays, both the delays and the parties responsible for them should be identified accurately. Daily window delay analysis outperforms other delay analysis methods, but it requires intensive day-by-day information. The information flow among the project stakeholders must be smooth and speedy at all stages of the production process not only to achieve the basic project objectives but also to let project stakeholders recognize the delays and the parties responsible for them in order to recover time and cost. The Internet is attractive for transferring information promptly and economically with no regional or temporal borders. To merge the power of the Internet and to ease time consuming delay analysis, a web-based application is proposed to analyze delays effectively and contemporaneously, to reduce time and cost, and to provide historical data. The application considers the day-by-day variation in critical path(s) during the project life cycle. The application gives accurate and repeatable results for apportioning project delays, accelerations and decelerations among involved parties. The manual effort required by traditional systems is minimized with the application’s simple, easy to use, yet effective and highly automated features. Moreover, the database structure of the application is designed to store and manage more than one project at a time to let its users calculate the overall performance of the company including all projects, and to calculate average durations for activities that can come up in future projects.
M.S. in Civil Engineering, December 2011
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- Title
- A METHODOLOGY FOR MAJOR BUS ROUTE RESCHEDULING TO IMPROVE TRANSIT PERFORMANCE
- Creator
- Lu, Xi
- Date
- 2012-08-01, 2012-07
- Description
-
In a period of growing transit operating deficits, increasing attention and concern is being directed at both the decreasing levels of...
Show moreIn a period of growing transit operating deficits, increasing attention and concern is being directed at both the decreasing levels of productivity of transit systems in general and the broad differences in measured service performance compiled for various transit systems. The purpose of this study is an assist public transit managers by providing them with a mathematical technique to analyze the efficiency with which serviced is produced and the effectiveness with which it is consumed. By providing the analysis model which not requires an extensive amount of data, the operator can have tool for decision-making of profit and market growth. Thus, transit managers will be able to access the performance of the agency and areas where improvements can be realistically achieved. Using the urban operation of the Chicago Transit Authority, a transit performance model is developed to analysis efficiency and effectiveness of the city's bus system. As the system exists, there are 144 bus routes start and end, frequency of dispatching buses and ridership changes from Weekdays and Weekend, peak hour and off-peak hour. In many of these routes, vehicles are used inefficiently and ineffectively, only a few passengers carried in some routes in off-peak hour, yet in other routes through the Central Business District (CBD) area, there are always not enough buses in peak hour. Also, some routes cannot provide enough on-time arrival service and some special group like elderly and handicapped cannot receive enough service in certain area. The goal of case research is to determine to understand the transit performance of Chicago Transit Authority and to select the optimal improvement projects to maximize the performance in term of economy and social equity.
M.S. in Civil Engineering, July 2012
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- Title
- SUSTAINABLE NEW CITY MENTOUGOU, CHINA
- Creator
- Yin, Lu
- Date
- 2013-04-30, 2013-05
- Description
-
This thesis will demonstrate one of the first urban models for the future of China’s growth. The Urban Operating System and GPS make the smart...
Show moreThis thesis will demonstrate one of the first urban models for the future of China’s growth. The Urban Operating System and GPS make the smart city smarter by linking up networks of billions of distributed sensors, systems, and intelligence across urban environments via city-scale operating systems. Personal Rapid Transit system runs everywhere and it is accessed and ordered by smart phone. Green belt is the medium that links all the natural area and parks in the city which become the core element in the city because it plays the most important role. Two types of transportation system including the Meglev for 10 minute access to Beijing and the PRT system for all internal urban mobility. The population of the new city is 80000. 80% of the people live here and work here, 20% of the people live here but work in Beijing. 30% of the people will use PRT system everyday. All the city blocks are mixed-use blocks. There are several types of residential buildings including mid-rise, high-rise and Beijing traditional courtyard house. This sustainable new city provides quality of lift to all the people live in the city.
M.S. in Architecture, May 2013
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- Title
- DAMAGE DETECTION OF STRUCTURES USING INTERVAL FINITE ELEMENT METHOD
- Creator
- Venkitaraman, Shyamala
- Date
- 2012-04-16, 2012-05
- Description
-
Health assessment and damage detection for existing structures is an essential procedure for their safe and reliable operation so that any...
Show moreHealth assessment and damage detection for existing structures is an essential procedure for their safe and reliable operation so that any catastrophic failure may be prevented in a timely manner. However, results obtained from a health assessment of a structure possess uncertainties in measurements, system properties and loads. Furthermore, the conventional deterministic structural analyses are incapable of considering these uncertainties, thereby resulting in error when estimating the state of health of a structure. Interval (unknown-but-bounded) representation is one method to quantify uncertainty in a physical system. Using an interval variable, the uncertain parameter is bounded between extreme values. In this work, a new method for damage assessment of structures is developed that utilizes the results from structural health assessment as uncertain input parameters in an interval finite element analysis scheme. This method, due to its capability of considering uncertainties, offers a more robust process for estimating the possible existence of damage and overall health of the structure. As an illustrative example, the method is applied for a failed sign support structure. First, the structure's response from previous health assessment procedure was used to construct uncertain interval responses. Then using these interval responses as input parameters, an interval finite element method was performed. The results of the analysis verify and correlate with the failure location of the actual structure. Moreover, the lifetime assessment of the structure obtained from this method is the lower bound of, and correlates with the actual failure time of the structure.
M.S. in Civil Engineering, May 2012
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- Title
- PARADIGM SHIFT IN REMOTE EDUCATION FOR THE LABORATORY: A SOCIAL APPROACH TO DISTANCE LEARNING
- Creator
- Hanley, Richard
- Date
- 2011-12, 2011-12
- Description
-
With modern telecommunication tools the ability for two individuals to work together remotely has greatly improved. Moreover, there have been...
Show moreWith modern telecommunication tools the ability for two individuals to work together remotely has greatly improved. Moreover, there have been great strides made to improve handling medium to large groups of people in real time in remote settings, viz. the teleconference and webinar. However, the status of remote tools for laboratory environments where there is significant hardware and the individuals are more likely to talk amongst themselves in irregular patterns is not nearly as well studied. This thesis examines the way most laboratories in electrical engineering are setup, and creates a model for how to create a remote environment for distance learning. It then discusses the current state of the art, and how such an implementation of the model can be made with such tools. Finally a usability study of the implementation is examined. The primary result of the usability study is that when moving to a remote environment the social paradigm that students and instructors use is likely to change, and simply working on creating a virtual mirror to the laboratory may not work in the future.
M.S. in Electrical Engineering, December 2011
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- Title
- SURVIVAL AND GROWTH OF LISTERIA MONOCYTOGENES IN CHOPPED GREEN AND RED BELL PEPPERS USING PREDICTIVE MODELING
- Creator
- Zhang, L1jie
- Date
- 2015, 2015-07
- Description
-
Listeria monocytogenes (L. monocytogenes) is a Gram-positive pathogenic organism and the causative agent of human and animal listeriosis....
Show moreListeria monocytogenes (L. monocytogenes) is a Gram-positive pathogenic organism and the causative agent of human and animal listeriosis. Listeriosis is a gastrointestinal or invasive systemic illness resulting from consumption of contaminated food products, mainly cheese, deli meats, and fresh produce, by L. monocytogenes. In recent years, several foodborne outbreaks have been reported that were associated with fresh produce, such as cantaloupe, celery and sprouts. Temperature is considered a major factor that affects L. monocytogenes growth during storage. The proliferation of L. monocytogenes varies on different produce items based on storage temperature. In this study, the persistence and population dynamics of three L. monocytogenes strains, LS806 (cheese isolate), LS810 (cantaloupe isolate) and LS808 (celery isolate) were evaluated by incubating inoculated fresh-cut green bell pepper and red bell pepper at various temperatures (5oC, 10oC, and 25oC) for 14 days. To assess the risk of L. monocytogenes in these fresh-cut vegetable items, a primary predictive model was fitted for L. monocytogenes growth data using DMFit. Green bell pepper had significantly (P<0.05) higher pH and aw, and higher amounts of yeast and mold and Enterobacteriaceae than did red bell pepper. In green bell pepper, all three strains showed no significant difference (P>0.05) in growth rate when incubated at the same temperature. In red bell peppers, LS808 had the highest (P<0.05) growth rate at both 5°C and 25°C out of the three strains. All of the three strains grew significantly faster (P<0.01) at 25°C than either 5°C or 10°C in both green and red bell peppers. All three strains obtained less than 1 log10 growth increase after incubating at 25°C for 6 hours on pre-chilled produce. Some strains (LS806 and LS810) significantly increased (P<0.01) during two 5-hour 25°C incubations, but did not reach 1 log10 growth increase. The results indicate that L. monocytogenes not only persists, but also grows in chopped green and red bell peppers at 5, 10, and 25°C, and strains grew faster at the higher temperature (25°C). Data obtained could be further evaluated for determining whether Time/temperature control for safety (TCS) designation should be applied to chopped green and red bell peppers.
M.S. in Food Safety and Technology, July 2015
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- Title
- STRUCTURAL CHARACTERIZATION OF THE FLIGHT MUSCLE OF MANDUCA SEXTA
- Creator
- Cheng, Yu-shu
- Date
- 2013-04-22, 2013-05
- Description
-
There are several properties of the flight muscle Manduca sexta that are interesting. In its physiological characteristics, like mammalian...
Show moreThere are several properties of the flight muscle Manduca sexta that are interesting. In its physiological characteristics, like mammalian skeletal and cardiac striated muscle, it is a synchronous muscle. However, it is much more similar structurally to the more widely known asynchronous insect flight muscles of Drosophila and Lethocerus. The goal of the thesis is to study the structural characteristics and perform mechanical studies of dorsal and ventral muscle of Manduca flight muscle. In pursuit of this goal, a secondary purpose was to develop better storage conditions for skinned insect muscle which can maintain muscle structure and function. Maximum active force as a function of time in storage was compared for storing at 4℃ without glycerol and storing at -80℃ with 75% glycerol. The maximum force values were almost the same during days 0-4. However, the muscle stored at -80℃ with 75% glycerol gave higher active force in high calcium (pCa 4.5) solution over a longer time in storage than muscle stored at 4℃. Both ventral and dorsal muscles can deliver 40-50% of original active force for up to 21 days in storage. X-ray diffraction experiments were done to compare the response of chemically skinned Manduca flight muscle to temperature and to the induction of rigor. The lattice spacing (d10) decreased and intensity ratio I20/I10 increased when the temperature of the relaxing solution bathing the solution increased from 10℃ to 40℃. Lattice spacing (d10) decreased, but the I20/I10 intensity ratio increased slightly while concentration of dextran increased from 1% to 6%. Six percent dextran was insufficient to restore the in vivo lattice spacing.
M.S. in Molecular Biochemistry and Biophysics, May 2013
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- Title
- DETERMINATION OF REDUNDANCY IN STRUCTURES USING INTERVAL UNCERTAINTY ANALYSIS
- Creator
- Amirshaghaghi, Sayeh
- Date
- 2014, 2014-05
- Description
-
Existence of redundancy in structures plays an important role in increasing their safety and reliability. However, using state-of-the-art...
Show moreExistence of redundancy in structures plays an important role in increasing their safety and reliability. However, using state-of-the-art deterministic and probabilistic approaches, all possibilities for estimation of redundancy (e.g. due to occurrence of different damage scenarios) have not been considered. One of the methods to quantify the presence of uncertainties in a system is to use interval variables. In this work, a new method for estimating the redundancy using interval structural analysis is developed. This method, hereafter referred to as Interval Redundancy Analysis (IRA), is robust and considers possibilities of strength reduction for each element leading to failure. Independent intervals for reduction of the strength for five damage scenarios of intact, slightly damage, moderately damaged, severely damaged, and completely damaged as well as strength of each element are considered. A numerical example to show the behavior of the developed method with comparison to Monte-Carlo simulation results is presented.
M.S. in Civil Engineering, May 2014
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- Title
- Tests on a four-cycle automobile engine
- Creator
- Barrett, D. O., Morgan, C. W.
- Date
- 2009, 1908
- Publisher
- Armour Institute of Technology
- Description
-
http://www.archive.org/details/testsonfourcycle00barr
Thesis (B.S.)--Armour Institute of Technology; Bibliography: leaves 1-3
- Title
- THE RELATIONS OF LEADER EMPOWERING BEHAVIORS ON EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE: MODERATED BY GENDER DYAD COMPOSITION
- Creator
- Zigun, David J
- Date
- 2016, 2016-07
- Description
-
This study examined the possible moderating effect of gender dyadic composition on the relationship between Leadership Empowering Behaviors ...
Show moreThis study examined the possible moderating effect of gender dyadic composition on the relationship between Leadership Empowering Behaviors (LEBs) and employee performance across 221 supervisor-subordinate dyads in a Fortune 500 Midwestern U.S. company. The relationships between LEBs and employee performance moderated by gender dyadic composition were examined, as well as possible group differences of LEB ratings between gender dyad group membership. The goal of this study was to test the moderating role of gender dyadic composition on the relationship between LEBs and employee performance. This study obtained both supervisor ratings of employee performance and employee ratings of LEBs, allowing for the use of multi-source data. Results supported the expected relationship between LEBs and employee performance but neither indications of a moderating effect by gender dyads were found, nor were there group differences in perceptions of LEBs. This study adds to the existing literature because previous research has predominantly focused on examining employee perceptions of LEBs and related outcomes, but this was the first study to explore the potential moderating effect of gender dyads in this relationship. Implications of this study are explored.
M.S. in Psychology, July 2016
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- Title
- DEVELOPMENT OF A TESTBED FOR STUDYING SECURITY ISSUES IN VOIP NETWORKS
- Creator
- Olawoye, Oladeji
- Date
- 2011-12-06, 2011-12
- Description
-
VoIP is increasingly becoming an alternative to the traditional PSTN for Telephony this is as a result of certain advantages and services...
Show moreVoIP is increasingly becoming an alternative to the traditional PSTN for Telephony this is as a result of certain advantages and services offered by VoIP. VoIP will be considered able to fully replace PSTN if it can provide same or better Quality of Service and Security guaranty as PSTN. Delivering telephony services over (best-effort and connectionless) IP data network faces two main issues not experienced in PSTN, security and quality of service; security in the sense that telephone calls will be susceptible to attacks that are known in the Internet, quality of service in the sense that voice packets now have to compete with packets of other traffic for a limited bandwidth. Researches are ongoing in these two fields to make experience on VoIP similar to the traditional telephone. The focus of this thesis work is in the security aspect. SIP protocol has become one of the most popular signaling protocols used for VoIP, SIP architecture is an open architecture originally developed for trusted communications among trusted partners, and therefore much thought was not given to security. Adopting SIP as a main protocol used in VoIP in the Internet where there are where there are lots of hostile users calls for more ways to properly secure its use. The thesis work involves setting up of a SIP based VoIP network based on open source SIP telephony platforms to study various security issues in a SIP-Based VoIP network and experiment some proposed detection mechanism. The contribution of this work is to develop a graphical user interface in the UNIX environment using Java that makes the execution of the attack scenarios easy to carry out and observe.
M.S. in Electrical Engineering, December 2011
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- Title
- Study of ideal dry pipe valve
- Creator
- Hepp, A. A., Smith, E. J. L.
- Date
- 2009, 1906
- Publisher
- Armour Institute of Technology
- Description
-
http://www.archive.org/details/studyofidealdryp00hepp
Thesis (B.S.)--Armour Institute of Technology
- Title
- COMPRESSIVE SENSING AND RECONSTRUCTION : THEORY AND APPLICATIONS
- Creator
- Krishnamurthy, Ritvik Nadig
- Date
- 2014, 2014-07
- Description
-
Conventional approach in acquisition and reconstruction of images from frequency domain strictly follow the Nyquist sampling theorem. The...
Show moreConventional approach in acquisition and reconstruction of images from frequency domain strictly follow the Nyquist sampling theorem. The principle states that the sampling frequency required for complete reconstruction of a signal is at least twice the maximum frequency of the original signal. This dissertation studies an emerging theory called Compressive Sensing or Compressive Sampling which goes against the conventional wisdom. Theoretically, it is possible to reconstruct images or signals accurately from a number of samples which is far smaller than the Nyquist samples. Compressive Sensing has proven to have farther implications than merely reducing sampling frequency of the signal. Possibility of new data acquisition methods from analog domain to digital form using fewer sensors, image acquisition using much smaller sensors array, to name a few. This novel theory combines sampling and compression methods thereby reducing the data acquisition resources, such as number of sensors, storage memory for collected samples and maximum operating frequency. This dissertation presents some insights into reconstruction of grey scale images and audio signals using OMP and CoSaMP algorithms. It also delves into some of the key mathematical insights underlying this new theory and explains some of the interactions between Compressive Sensing and related elds such as statistics, coding theory and theoretical computer science. viii
M.S. in Computer Engineering, July 2014
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- Title
- PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING AND ONLINE MINDFULNESS TRAINING
- Creator
- Stickney, Laurie
- Date
- 2013-04-15, 2013-05
- Description
-
Despite the improvements in resources and communication in today’s world, many people still do not have access to mental health resources....
Show moreDespite the improvements in resources and communication in today’s world, many people still do not have access to mental health resources. Mindfulness, a type of meditation, has been shown to be effective at reducing stress, reducing pain, and increasing general mental well-being. Mindfulness has the potential to reach many people though internet-based interventions. However, more research is needed to determine whether mindfulness retains its efficacy when delivered over the internet. Participants engaged in a six week program of internet-based mindfulness interventions. Facets of mental well-being were assessed at various time points including mood state, anxiety, quality of life, mindfulness, and psychological inflexibility. Hierarchical Linear Modeling demonstrated that over time, participants significantly increased their level of mindfulness and decreased in their psychological inflexibility. Measurements pertaining to mood, anxiety, quality of life, and perceived stress did not change significantly. Nonetheless, results from the present study suggest the potential efficacy of internet-based mindfulness interventions and highlight the need for future research in this domain.
M.S. in Psychology, May 2013
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- Title
- Study of electric rates and ratemaking
- Creator
- Barrer, Glen A, Shaffer, Sydney
- Date
- 2009, 1915
- Publisher
- Armour Institute of Technology
- Description
-
http://www.archive.org/details/studyofelectricr00barr
Thesis (B.S.)--Armour Institute of Technology, 1915 Bibliography: leaves 43-47 B.S. in...
Show morehttp://www.archive.org/details/studyofelectricr00barr
Thesis (B.S.)--Armour Institute of Technology, 1915 Bibliography: leaves 43-47 B.S. in Electrical Engineering, 1915
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- Title
- "NEW HORIZON" - SUSTAINABLE NEW CITY, DAHEJ, GUJARAT, INDIA
- Creator
- Suthar, Bhumika
- Date
- 2013, 2013-07
- Description
-
The purpose of this thesis is to develop an ideal environment for developing new cities, that are not just green and clean but also self...
Show moreThe purpose of this thesis is to develop an ideal environment for developing new cities, that are not just green and clean but also self-sustainable. Current cities in world supports great infrastructure and accommodates approximately 6-7 Million people. According to UN, the population growth in next 15 years would be 10-15 million people will be living in the cities and that would increase loads on existing cities infrastructure. To avoid these inevitable circumstances we need new sustainable cities. In last two decades rapid urbanization and industrialization has caused indelible effects on our ecosystem. This thesis will provide in-depth insight on current urban problems and present a solution in form of new sustainable city. A holistic approach has been taken towards developing a new city at Dahej in Gujarat, India, which will be a prototype for new sustainable community development in future. It focuses on creating a perfect balance between environmental, social and economic sustainability. This new city will provide quality of life and environment. This thesis is a sincere approach to provide a strategic solution for post-carbon world and qualitative phenomena of the sustainable low-carbon future.
M.S. in Architecture, July 2013
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- Title
- NANOPORE STOCHASTIC DETECTION OF ANTHRAX
- Creator
- Han, Yujing
- Date
- 2014, 2014-05
- Description
-
Nanopore stochastic sensor using a biological protein ion channel has emerged as a powerful sensing technique due to its outstanding features...
Show moreNanopore stochastic sensor using a biological protein ion channel has emerged as a powerful sensing technique due to its outstanding features such as label- and amplification-free detection, rapidness, high sensivity and selectivity. Development of a nanopore stochastic sensor for the rapid detection of anthrax can effectively prevent and control the spread of disease infection, and become extremely useful in biodefense. Two sensor design strategies were studied: one is chemistry-based detection of dipicolinic acid; and the other is genetics-based detection of anthrax lethal factor. Both approaches used in this study should find useful application in the development of nanopore sensors for the detection of other biomolecules and pathogens.
M.S. in Chemistry, May 2014
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- Title
- Lakeshore East Community School
- Creator
- Fernandes, Marie
- Date
- 2010-07-29
- Title
- SECURITY-CONSTRAINED UNIT COMMITMENT RESERVE DETERMINATION IN JOINT ENERGY AND ANCILLARY SERVICES AUCTION
- Creator
- Ganji Tanha, Mohammad Mahdi
- Date
- 2012-07-25, 2012-07
- Description
-
This study presents the method in which the energy and ancillary services auction is simultaneously cleared in electricity market. By the...
Show moreThis study presents the method in which the energy and ancillary services auction is simultaneously cleared in electricity market. By the security-constraint unit commitment model proposed in this study Independent System Operators (ISO) can determines the sufficient amount of reserve which is necessary to maintain security and reliability of the system. Before the fixed reserve requirement either equal to a percentage of the system peak load or a thermal unit with highest capacity is considered in energy and ancillary service auction in market clearing. The disadvantage of this method is high cost and insufficiency. When it is insufficient the system operator needs to committee more thermal units or does the load curtailment. At the time the fixed quantity is more than needed customers pay more although it is not necessary. Here the sufficient amount of reserve is determined based on the contingency which has been simulated. Contingencies include thermal unit outage and line outage is considered. The amount of reserves is obtained based on thermal units’ physical constraints and the rate offered in the electricity market. Then the integration of wind generation and its effects on the quantity of the reserve determination is considered. Since the wind power generation brings uncertainties to the power system we need to consider scenarios. In order to generate wind power generation scenarios we use Monte Carlo simulation. Since the number of scenarios are too much and increase the problem complexity we use Fast backward/forward scenario reduction. This problem is solved through direct optimization problem including the minimization of the operational cost as well as satisfying the network security constraints when contingency happens.
M.S. in Electrical Engineering, July 2012
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- Title
- STUDIES TOWARD TOTAL SYNTHESIS OF (-)-DEGUELIN
- Creator
- Li, Bao
- Date
- 2013-05-13, 2013-05
- Description
-
Deguelin, as a rotenoid, has emerged as an attractive pharmacophore for chemprevention due to its effectiveness for both in vitro and in vivo...
Show moreDeguelin, as a rotenoid, has emerged as an attractive pharmacophore for chemprevention due to its effectiveness for both in vitro and in vivo models. The biological activity and its structural complexity instigated the development of new synthetic technologies which could satisfy the increasing demand of deguelin, as well as broaden the diversity of the rotenoids. Here, a strategy of asymmetric acid-catalyzed annulations toward the enantioselective total synthesis of (-)-deguelin will be discussed. Several approaches were investigated to connect the chromene and phenolic moieties to create the pentacyclic rotenoid skeleton. Meanwhile, by collaborating with Professor Rajendra Mehta, several derivatives of deguelin were also made to study its bioactivity and interaction modes with specific proteins.
M.S. in Chemistry, May 2013
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