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(2022)ThesisTime series models are used to model, simulate, and forecast the behaviour of a phenomenon over time based on data recorded over consistent intervals. The digital era has resulted in data being captured and archived in unprecedented amounts, such that vast amounts of information are available for analysis. Feature-rich time-series datasets are one of the data sets that have become available due to the expanding trend of data collection technologies worldwide. With the application of time series analysis to support financial and managerial decision-making, the development and advancement of time series models in the transportation domain are unavoidable. As a result, this thesis redefines time series models for transportation planning use with the following three aims: (1) To combine parametric and bootstrapping techniques within time series models; (2) to develop a time series model capable of modelling both temporal and spatial dependencies in time-series data; and (3) to leverage the hierarchical Bayesian modelling paradigm to accommodate flexible representations of heterogeneity in data. The first main chapter introduces an ensemble of ARIMA models. It compares its performance against conventional ARIMA (a parametric method) and LSTM models (a non-parametric method) for short-term traffic volume prediction. The second main chapter introduces a copula time series model that describes correlations between variables through time and space. Temporal correlations are modelled by an ARMA-GARCH model which enables a modeller to describe heteroscedastic data. The copula model has a flexible correlation structure and is used to model spatial correlations with the ability to model nonlinear, tailed and asymmetric correlations. The third main chapter provides a Bayesian modelling framework to raise awareness about using hierarchical Bayesian approaches for transport time series data. In addition, this chapter presents a Bayesian copula model. The combination of the two models provides a fully Bayesian approach to modelling both temporal and spatial correlations. Compared with frequentist models, the proposed modelling structures can incorporate prior knowledge. In the fourth main chapter, the fully Bayesian model is used to investigate mobility patterns before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic using social media data. A more focused analysis is conducted on the mobility patterns of Twitter users from different zones and land use types.
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(2022)ThesisSinglet fission is a photo-physical process that generates two triplet excitons from one singlet exciton and can potentially enhance efficiency in photovoltaic systems. The combination of photovoltaics and singlet fission is a novel field for solar energy conversion when there is much interest in renewable, non-destructive, and continuously available energy sources. Singlet fission can also overcome thermalization losses in photovoltaics, which happens in traditional cells when the incident photon energy is higher than the silicon bandgap energy, using a carrier multiplication mechanism. This thesis will design, construct, and characterize photovoltaic devices incorporating singlet fission materials to study singlet fission in practical application. The research focuses on materials characterization, spin dynamics, and electron transfers between acene and the semiconductor layer in Au/TiO2 ballistic cells, and the incorporation of singlet fission layers on silicon-based cell structures. In detail, a set of investigations was developed and summarized by implementing singlet fission materials into a state-of-the-art ballistic photovoltaic device and silicon-based solar cell. The studies demonstrate proof of concept and rationally explain the process. The first part of the thesis investigates thin films of pentacene, TIPS-pentacene, and tetracene via crystallinity, morphology, absorption, and thickness characterization. Additionally, Au and TiO2 layers in Schottky device structures were optimized to achieve the best performance for energy transfer from an applied dye layer (merbromin). The drop-casted dye layer influences the device performance by increasing short-circuit current and open-circuit voltage, demonstrating the ability of charge transfer between the device and the applied film. This device structure provides a test bed for studying charge and energy transfer from singlet fission films. The latter part of the thesis describes several investigations to understand singlet fission in a thin film using this architecture. Magneto-photoconductivity measurements were primarily used to observe the spin dynamics via photoconductivity under an external magnetic field. Control experiments with bare Au/TiO2 devices showed no observable magneto-photoconductivity signal. In contrast, devices with pentacene and tetracene singlet fission layers showed a strong magnetoconductivity effect caused by ballistic electron transfer from the singlet fission layer into the TiO2 n-type semiconductor through an ultra-thin gold layer inserted between the layers. A qualitatively different behavior is seen between the pentacene and tetracene, which reveals that the energy alignment plays a crucial part in the charge transfer between the singlet fission layer and the device. The last section investigates the application of pentacene and tetracene evaporated thin-films as sensitizer layers to a silicon-based solar cell. The optimized Si cell structure with the annealing treatment improved the cell's performance by increasing short-circuit current and open-circuit voltage. The deposition of pentacene and tetracene as sensitizer layers into the device showed some results but posed several challenges that need to be addressed. As the current-voltage and external quantum efficiency measurements were taken, it was observed that material interfaces need to be designed to fully achieve the singlet fission of the acene layer into the Si devices.
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(2022)ThesisSponges can harbour diverse communities of microbial symbionts, collectively referred to as a holobiont. Sponge symbionts play important ecological and mutualistic roles, including cycling of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur; provisioning the host with essential compounds; and producing bioactive metabolites that confer fitness advantages to the holobiont. Recent metagenomics and bioinformatics advances facilitate genomic reconstruction and metabolic characterisation of uncultured prokaryotic species. Leveraging these tools, I reconstructed 75 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) that represent 21 novel sponge-associated species: ten Gammaproteobacteria, six Acidimicrobiia, and five Acidobacteriota. The gammaproteobacterial species were metabolically diverse, likely representing adaptations to diverse habitats associated with different sponge species. Two species from the Candidatus genus Azotimanducus comprised almost identical patterns of organoheterotrophy that likely enabled them to colonize the same sponge host, but differed in other features that likely allowed for niche partitioning and cohabitation. Unlike the sponge-associated Gammaproteobacteria, the Acidimicrobiia shared very similar genomic features. Of particular interest, sponge-associated Acidimicrobiia were predicted to produce bioactive compounds that may modulate host signalling pathways, suggesting a potential role in host health. The sponge-associated Acidobacteriota likely predominantly formed symbiosis with their hosts prior to the phylogenetic split between sponges and corals. All five acidobacteriotal species shared similar patterns of organoheterotrophy, likely allowing for scavenging organic substrates from the host environment. Another feature that was specifically enriched in the novel sponge-associated Acidobacteriota was their capacity to produce diverse B-vitamins, with Candidatus Versatilivorator vitaminiformans comprising the genetic capacity to produce all of them. All 21 novel species also comprised unique respiratory, degradation, biosynthetic, and defensive features that likely mediate their interactions with the corresponding hosts. Features shared by the majority of the species were also identified. Altogether, the comprehensive genomic characterisation of sponge symbionts in this thesis has uncovered unique and shared features, highlighting the importance of extensive surveys into uncultured sponge symbiont diversity and function.
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(2022)ThesisThis thesis represents an effort to understand the structure of anisotropically strained Bismuth Ferrite (BiFeO3 BFO). This is executed by using anisotropic epitaxy and exploring the structure, magnetism, and electromechanical response in anisotropically strained BFO at various levels of average in-plane strain. This includes in the vicinity of the strain-induced morphotropic phase boundary where large enhancements to the electromechanical performance are identified. Bismuth ferrite (BFO) is a room-temperature magnetoelectric material that is able to easily adapt its crystal structure to accomodate any strain that is applied to it. By utilising high-index crystallographic substrates the effect anisotropic epitaxial strain has been explored using three different substrate materials (SrTiO3, (LaAlO3)0.3(Sr2TaAlO6)0.7 (LSAT), and LaAlO3) each with four orientations. The unit cell parameters of the BFO films behave linearly when weakly compressively strained on SrTiO3, and become more non-linear on LSAT. The strain-driven morphotropic phase boundary in BFO films grown on tilted LaAlO3(310) surfaces is able to stabilise a low-symmetry bridging phase between the well known M_A and M_C symmetries of BFO when deposited on SrTiO3 and LaAlO3 respectively. The anisotropic strain conditions of the substrate miscut force the BFO film to maintain strain along a high-symmetry in-plane direction whilst partially relaxing in the orthogonal low-symmetry in-plane direction. Interferometric displacement sensor (IDS) measurements indicate that the intrinsic piezoresponse of this new phase of BFO is double that of the R'-like version. Moreover we see spectroscopic indications through IDS and band-excitation frequency response measurements that there is a field-induced phase transition occurring under electric field wherein the low-symmetry phase is reversibly interconverted into the tetragonal-like phase creating a giant effective electromechanical response. These observations are fully supported by density functional theory and effective Hamiltonian calculations. When growing thicker films of this soft low-symmetry phase, a rich and detailed phase coexistence between the R', T', and bridging phase arise that is reminiscent of a highly tilted mixed-phase BFO. The topography of these samples also exhibit domain-like periodic stripes that evolve with the crystallography and are intimately linked together. \\ At the end of this thesis a number of neutron scattering experiments are presented on BFO films on YAlO3, LaAlO3, LSAT, and SrTiO3 substrates. Despite calculations and some experimental hints of a C-type antiferromagnetic phase in T'-BFO, there appears to be no evidence of this magnetic phase in BFO//YAO and BFO//LAO. Additionally, a cycloid model has been developed and implemented in order to fit ambiguous cycloidal peaks with a constrained model. This model is applied to two different systems of BFO with the results and interpretations discussed.