In financial risk management, coherent risk measures have been proposed as a way to avoid undesirable properties of measures such as value at risk that discourage diversification and do not account for the magnitude of the largest, and therefore most serious, losses. A coherent risk measure equals the maximum expected...
This dissertation presents submillimeter polarimetry methods and scientific results. The scientific results focus on revealing the magnetic field structure of giant molecular clouds (GMCs). The basic principles, instrumentation, observing strategy, and data analysis methods of submillimeter polarimetry are introduced. The scientific data were acquired by SPARO during the observing campaign...
Local structure determination in amorphous and disordered systems, which are crystallographically intractable, is critical for gaining an understanding of their properties. X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) is an excellent tool for local structure determination in amorphous and disordered environmental materials. Amorphous manganese oxides produced by the freshwater bacterium Leptothrix discophora SP6...
In the last decade we have seen tremendous increases in computer and network speeds and performance, resulting in the emergence of wide-area distributed computing. However, its potential has not been realized, primarily due to lack of security and isolation, provisioning issues and challenges involved in developing distributed applications.
We present...
There is increasing evidence that links chronic activation of glial cells and the subsequent self-propagating cycle of neuroinflammation to the neurodegenerative progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Nevertheless, attempts to identify currently approved drugs capable of safely attenuating the neuroinflammatory processes in AD have proven disappointing to date, and the development...
The transport properties of mayenite-based materials, Ca12Al14O33, were investigated. Systems studied included H-doped/ UV-irradiated Ca12Al14O33, Ca(12-x)MgxAl14O33 (x = 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.8, 1) and Ca12Al(14-x)SixO(33+x/2) (x = 1, 2, 3, 4). The as-prepared Ca12Al14O33 exhibited a room temperature electronic conductivity on the order of 10^-10 S/cm, and a high temperature...
In response to construction activities and loads from permanent structures, soil generally is subjected to a variety of loading modes varying both in time and location. It also has been increasingly appreciated that the strains around well-designed foundations, excavations and tunnels are mostly small, with soil responses at this strain...
><p><em>Vibrio cholerae</em>, the causative agent of the severe diarrheal disease cholera, secretes several "accessory" toxins including RTX toxin, which causes cross-linking of the actin cytoskeleton. The rtx locus of <em>V. cholerae</em> is located adjacent to the integrated CTX? prophage. The RTX toxin itself is encoded by the <em>rtxA</em> gene found...
The rapid growth of digital imaging technology and the accumulation of large collections of digital images has created the need for efficient and intelligent schemes for content-based image retrieval. Our goal is to organize the contents semantically, according to meaningful categories. We present a new approach for semantic classification that...
Two new strategies have been developed to accomplish direct nucleophilic acylation reactions. In the first approach, acylsilanes are added to various electrophiles using N-heterocyclic carbenes as catalysts. The second method utilizes O-silyl thiazolium carbinols as stoichiometric acyl anion precursors to afford acylated products under mild reaction conditions.
N-heterocyclic carbenes generated...
Flexibility can be created in manufacturing and service operations by using multipurpose production sources such as cross-trained labor and flexible machines/factories. We focus on control and design issues in systems with flexible resources. In Chapter 2, we consider optimal scheduling of a fully cross-trained server in a finite-population queueing system...
The Galactic center (GC) is a dense and chaotic region filled with unusual sources, such as intense star forming regions, dense star clusters, nonthermal radio filaments, and a massive black hole. The proximity of the GC region makes it an ideal place to study the unusual processes that tend to...
The electronic transport and magnetoresistive properties of the ferromagnetic semiconductor In1-xMnxAs were investigated in order to determine the nature of the transport and ferromagnetism in the films. p-InMnAs/n-InAs and metal/oxide/InMnAs heterojunctions were fabricated and characterized to elucidate the transport and magnetoresistance mechanisms at these technologically important interfaces.
The electronic transport...
Neurofibrillary tangle (NFT) formation in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and tauopathies occurs when tau protein adopts secondary structure and self-aggregates within neurons. Accompanying NFT maturation are post-translational modifications to tau; hyperphosphorylation, truncation and conformational changes occur in a highly sequential manner. In contrast, granulovacuolar degeneration bodies (GVDs) are a second type...
Biomorphic silicon carbide (bioSiC) is a novel porous ceramic material derived directly from wood precursors. This material is fabricated by pyrolysis of a natural wood precursor in an inert atmosphere leaving an amorphous carbon scaffold. The amorphous carbon is infiltrated with molten Si in vacuum at elevated temperature, which reacts...
Stem cells show great promise as cellular replacement and drug delivery therapies for a number of neurological disorders. This dissertation examines embryonic and adult types of stem cells, their plasticity, and mechanisms governing their development (Chapters 1-5). Our studies illustrate that leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) signaling and bone morphogenetic protein...
Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), renowned for their high electrical generation efficiency with low pollutant production, are promising for reducing global energy and environmental concerns. However, there are major barriers for SOFC commercialization. A primary challenge is reducing the capital cost of SOFC power plants to levels that can compete...
Fundamental investigations on the origins of friction at the nanoscale were carried out using both theoretical and experimental approaches. A model was developed that analytically solves for friction by the motion of dislocations at atomically flat crystalline interfaces. It combines known concepts from dislocation drag, grain boundary theory, and contact...
The role that spinal motion plays during ambulation is not clearly understood. Little in vivo regional spinal motion data exists in the literature with regard to walking and most gait models disregard the upper body altogether, or regard it as a single rigid structure. This study aims to increase understanding...
This dissertation is a multi-method study of the relocation process under the Chicago Housing Authority's implementation of federal redevelopment policies intended to decrease the racial and economic isolation of public housing tenants. It combines quantitative and spatial analysis of program administrative data, interviews with 'expert respondents,' and qualitative semi-structured interviews...
Three critical problem areas pertinent to the development of precision high-speed spindles for meso-scale machine tools (mMTs), driven by air turbines, constitute the focus of this work. These are the development of the spindle, of a new tool clamping device, and of a measurement system for spindle error motions.
For...
The work presented here represents a series of research projects that are unified in their goal: to use volume holographic gratings to enhance traditional signal processing applications in ways that would otherwise not be possible. To this end, we have completed work that can be classified into four different projects....
Arsenic trioxide (As<sub>2</sub>0<sub>3</sub>) is an arsenic-derivative that exhibits potent growth inhibitory effects against malignant cells. The remarkable antitumor effects of As<sub>2</sub>0<sub>3</sub> in vitro and in vivo have prompted the development of various clinical trials that established its activity in acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL). As<sub>2</sub>0<sub>3</sub> is part of the standard treatment...
Most women diagnosed with epithelial ovarian carcinoma (EOC) initially present with metastases, but little is known about the regulation of ovarian tumor cell dissemination by the tumor microenvironment. Because ovarian cancer cell dissemination is mostly limited to the peritoneal cavity and often results in the accumulation of malignant ascites, the...
Two-year colleges are a critical site for the expansion of educational opportunity in the United States. They enroll nearly half of all postsecondary students and are a gateway to higher education for low-income, non-traditional, racial and ethnic minority, and first-generation college students. Degree completion rates in the two-year sector are...
Spectral elements are p-type element which can provide better accuracy
and faster convergence. However, applications of these elements make
conformation to discontinuities in the function or its derivative
difficult. The eXtended Finite Element Method (XFEM) recently
developed at Northwestern University can easily treat the arbitrarily
aligned discontinuities, i.e. independent of...
Experimental and numerical studies of lasing in multiple light scattering media with gain are presented in this thesis. Depending on the dielectric constant spatial distribution is random or periodic, two different kinds of lasers are discussed: the random laser and the photonic crystal laser. This thesis, therefore, is divided into...
The optical and magneto-optical properties of the ferromagnetic semiconductors, InMnAs and its alloy InMnAsP were investigated to determine the band structure and nature of the ferromagnetism in these materials. Alloys were grown by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy. Infrared absorption of InMnAs was investigated to determine the presence and properties of...
The abundance and breadth of condition data generated by advanced inspection technologies have increased the frequency and accuracy of data collection, which is not exploited by the existing performance models. Moreover, simultaneity of deterioration and maintenance causes difficulty of estimating effectiveness of maintenance activities for existing performance models. To address...
The purpose of this dissertation study was to build on scholarly work in the area of critical mathematics by such scholars as Gutstein (2003) and Gutierrez (2002). Critical pedagogy is designed to foster political agency and critical consciousness in students (Freire, 1971). That is the aim of critical mathematics in...
Modeling and simulation at different scales were used to study mass transport, residence times and selective oxidation in nanostructured membranes. First, analytical equations of the possible mass transport mechanisms inside the pores were used to determine that diffusion dominates over convection under the conditions of interest for selective oxidation: 700...
The goal of this study was to investigate the properties of the retinal ganglion cell receptive field at low light levels. There has been considerable interest in whether the surround of a ganglion cell receptive field disappears and the center expands in size under scotopic conditions. The previous data from...
Ceramic matrix composites are known for their low density, high strength and high stiffness, but lower fracture toughness compared to metal matrix composites. The addition of a reinforcing agent within the matrix can increase the toughness of the composite via many strain energy absorption mechanisms such as plastic deformation. This...
I examine horizontally differentiated firms in three different contexts. First, I look at an industry where firms can develop self-customizable products -- products which appeal to different consumers for different reasons. This addition results in an unexpected conclusion that sometimes more differentiated firms can end up with lower profits than...
The goal of this dissertation was to examine the influence of motivational incentives on visual spatial attention in patients with probable Alzheimer's Disease (PRAD), patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and healthy age-matched control subjects (EC). Specifically, I compared the ability of monetary incentives to influence behavioral and neural performance...
The motion of thin drops under the effects of surfactants and gravity is studied. First, the effects of surfactant and temperature on the spreading of a viscous droplet are considered. Lubrication theory is used to develop a two-dimensional model for the evolution of the droplet. The surfactant is assumed to...
This dissertation studies the organizing local approach to labor renewal, a union model centered on organizing new workers. I examine the role of activists and what motivates them to participate beyond a rational evaluation of gains. Additionally, I establish the conditions for successful union reform, specifically, how to overcome inertial...
Should the government subsidize entry to promote competition? In theory, free entry does not guarantee the socially optimum number of entrants. In differentiated product markets, free entry can result either in excessive or insufficient entry. Quantifying this inefficiency and identifying the optimal subsidy level require an empirical framework that combines...
Wave propagation at the bottom of the electromagnetic spectrum (below 300 kHz) in the Earth-ionosphere system is a problem having a rich history of theoretical investigation extending over many decades. Propagation within this system involves complex interactions of electromagnetic waves with the lithosphere, oceans, and ionosphere, leading to resonances that...
Substrate-mediated delivery involves the immobilization of DNA, complexed with nonviral vectors, to a biomaterial or surface that supports cell adhesion. Cells cultured on the substrate are exposed to elevated DNA concentrations within the local microenvironment, which enhances transfection. As surface properties are critical to this delivery approach, self-assembled monolayers (SAMs)...
Autoxidation is a primary route by which lubricants in working conditions undergo degradation. Degraded lubricants, if not replaced periodically, contribute to increased wear and product failure. Experimental studies of lubricant degradation have yielded useful results but have left important questions unanswered. While many computational studies of degradation have been carried...
We compute Lawson homology groups and semi-topological K-theory for certain "degenerate" varieties. "Degenerate" varieties are those smooth complex projective varieties whose zero cycles are supported on a proper subvariety. Rationally connected varieties are examples of such varieties. Our main method of study makes use of a technique of Bloch and...
The study of III-Nitride based optoelectronics devices is a maturing field, but there are still many underdeveloped areas in which to make a contribution of new and original research. This work specifically targets the goals of realizing high-efficiency back-illuminated solar-blind photodetectors, solar-blind focal plane arrays, and visible- and solar-blind Avalanche...
Recent work exploring children's verb learning in the laboratory has generated some interesting contradictions. Some studies have found that children as old as 4 years old are unable to reliably map a novel verb to an action (e.g., Kersten & Smith, 2002; Imai, Haryu, & Okada, 2005), even though much...
In mammalian development, cell specification and organogenesis are achieved by the regulated expression and repression of specific subsets of genes. The anterior pituitary gland, comprised of five cell types that arise from a common precursor, is an excellent model system for understanding these developmental processes. Examination of factors regulating transcription...
In this dissertation we analyze, using standard formal imperfect competition models from the literature, two central public policy issues in the deregulated wholesale electricity markets. The first issue is the regulatory rules around generator ownership of transmission companies or transmission rights in general. The second issue we look into is...
Social networks play an important role in the labor market. Various surveys document that 30-60% of jobs are found through friends or relatives. To better understand how networks operate in the labor market, I examine how networks that were formed involuntarily as a result of the American Civil War and...
This dissertation explains why some rebel groups act in a highly coercive fashion toward local populations, only to shift to increasingly contractual behavior, and why other groups that share similar circumstances evolve in the opposite direction. Drawing upon fieldwork in Sudan, Iraq, Turkey, and Colombia, this study examines three rebel...
This dissertation investigates the ways in which poetry encourages visual images in the reader. This investigation breaks new ground, for in the wake of behaviorist psychology and the linguistic turn in literary theory, literary critics have ignored and often spurned the visual imagination. The project uses Imagist poetry as a...
Information processing in the striatum is crucial for voluntary movement control and associative learning and in the normal condition is subject to balanced dopaminergic and cholinergic modulation. However, in Parkinson's disease (PD) striatal dopamine (DA) level falls because of degeneration of DA neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta and...
The present dissertation includes my research on modeling financial market returns and volatility on high frequency data. It consists of three chapters.
The first chapter introduces a novel high-frequency volatility estimator based on large price moves, which constitutes a generalization of the standard range. An asymptotic theory is developed in...
An understanding of how two people anticipate, adapt, and react to each other's forces and motions could aid in designing machines to work cooperatively with humans and further explain how a single human interacts with the world. Tasks, such as lifting and moving a bulky object, teaching manual skills, dancing,...
Commercially available electrically powered prosthetic elbows are stiff and unyielding. Making these artificial limb replacements more closely mimic human elbows by increasing their compliance may be beneficial. In addition to having increased compliance compared with current electrically powered prosthetic elbows, humans modulate the overall impedance of their joints. The author...
Small area estimation (SAE) has been one of the most active areas in survey methodology research, due to the increasing demand for small area statistics from government agencies and the private sector. But in some areas of interest, sample sizes could be very small, or even zero, in which case,...
Chinese television has gone through enormous growth and significant structural change since the economic reforms of the 1970s. The changes include an increased number of channels, the establishment of overseas channels, increased reliance on advertising, more diversified programming, and heightened market competition. The new multi-channel media environment has the potential...
Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) is an aphasic dementia syndrome caused by neurodegenerative disease in which linguistic abilities are selectively disrupted in the relative absence of other cognitive deficits in early stages. The studies presented in this thesis were designed to examine the integrity of word and object processing by contrasting...
I study several aspects of a game-theoretic model of persuasion. A speaker attempts to persuade a listener to take an action which is highly ranked by the speaker. The listener knows the speaker's preference but is uncertain about what the speaker can say. The listener can commit to a persuasion...
"Prufrock" to <em>The Waste Land</em>: T. S. Eliot's Periodical Publications, 1915-1922 Randall J. Woods This dissertation presents, in publication date order, the 167 articles published by T. S. Eliot from 1915 to 1922, most of which have never been reprinted. They include literary criticism, book reviews, poetry, philosophical essays, humorous...
What can the theatrical use of food accomplish in performances which assert cultural, legal, or moral rights to food production and consumption in a food insecure society? Case studies comprising the USDA's 1933-34 World's Fair exhibits, the May 1933 Wisconsin Cooperative Milk Pool protest, the 1936 Federal Theatre Project living...
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) allows for the selective visualization of blood vessels via the intravascular injection of a paramagnetic contrast agent and the suppression of background signal. Called magnetic resonance angiography (MRA), this technique can produce three-dimensional images and is useful clinically for the noninvasive diagnosis of vascular disorders. In...
High relaxivity contrast agents are of great importance in the advancement of magnetic resonance imaging diagnostics for use in biomaterials. Biomaterials that are implanted into the body, with the goal of repairing or regenerating lost or damaged tissue, need to be tracked noninvasively, over time. I have completed work using...
The primary function of the human urinary bladder is to store urine, while maintaining a permeability barrier that protects underlying tissues from noxious urinary components. Inflammatory diseases of the bladder, including urinary tract infection (UTI) and interstitial cystitis (IC), afflict millions of patients in the US annually and cause significant...
This dissertation presents a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) study of anisotropic superconductors, MgB$_2$ and Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_{8+\delta}$ (Bi2212), and diffusion in glass-forming aqueous solutions of glycerol. In glycerol and deuterated water mixtures, the diffusion of glycerol is measured selectively by the $^1$H NMR stimulated echo technique in the gradient field of a...
In composite manufacturing, Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding (VARTM) is becoming increasingly important as a cost effective manufacturing method of structural composites. In this process the dry preform (reinforcement) is placed on a rigid tool and covered by a flexible film to form an airtight vacuum bag. Liquid resin is...
This thesis is devoted to the study of A-branes on symplectic tori and to the Mirror Symmetry conjecture. Using a method called Seidel's mirror map, we are able to reconstruct the homogeneous coordinate ring of a complex abelian variety using Lagrangian intersection theory on the mirror symplectic torus. Moreover, we...
This dissertation examines topical humor produced by "Late Night with David Letterman," "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," "Saturday Night Live," and The Onion for the period of one year after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Three phases emerge: the purgation of extreme emotions like anger, acceptance or...
In "Optimal Delegation" I analyze the design of decision rules by a principal who faces an informed but biased agent and who is unable to commit to contingent transfers. The contracting problem reduces to a delegation problem in which the principal commits to a set of decisions from which the...
Entangled photons serve as an important tool in the field of quantum information processing. Traditionally, spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) in second-order nonlinear crystals has been the workhorse source for generating entangled photons. However, those SPDC-generated photons are notoriously difficult to couple into single-mode optical fibers due to mode mismatch, thus...
At the heart of nonlinear optimization methods lies the solution of linear systems of equations. As the size of the problem increases, it is imperative to use iterative methods, such as the conjugate gradient algorithm, to solve these linear systems. In the context of constrained optimization, it has proved to...
Next generation of high performance nano-optoelectronic integrated circuits will require an integral combination of highly efficient all-optical nanophotonic devices and electrically-pumped nanophotonic devices, which will enable the chip to process optical information all optically with ultrafast speed and electro-optically to interface with the electronic control plane. The realizations of such...
In the first chapter, I study how political institutions can affect policymaking when the economy is in transition. I develop a framework where a transition process gradually restructures economic institutions so that the population's long-term preference may differ from its short-term preference. A democracy may fail to implement the optimal...
As technology moves into deep submicron and nanoscale era, undesirable trends such as increasing power density, leakage power, and temperature variation within chips have made thermal effects emerge as a major bottleneck in further technology scaling. Thermal effects are no longer considered as just a reliability issue, but it also...
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many images of dwarves, hirsutes, and castrati depict them in the guise of the monstrous, either as jokes of nature or indices of courtly wit. However, there are some Renaissance portraits of physically deformed individuals that transcend these categories. These portraits point to the...
It is critical to genomic integrity that DNA is replicated completely and faithfully during each cell cycle. The essential replication factor Cdt1 is a critical protein in preventing reinitiation of replication. Overexpression of Cdt1 causes re-replication in p53 null cells and transforms NIH3T3 cells, causing them to form tumors in...
The use of processes based on microorganisms to produce fuels, monomers, and pharmaceuticals from renewable feedstocks is increasing today due to their environmental and economic advantages over petrochemical-based processes. In order to unlock the full potential of microorganisms to produce a sustainable industry centered on biosynthesis, an improved understanding of...
A catalytic, multi-component coupling reaction for the synthesis of nitrogen-containing heterocycles has been developed, via the reaction of an imine, &#945;-diazoester and unsaturated coupling partner in the presence of a copper(I) or rhodium(II) transition metal catalyst with excellent diastereo-selectivities and high yields. The transition metal-catalyzed decomposition of a diazo compound...
New telecommunication techniques utilizing distinctive quantum properties, e.g., measurement uncertainties and entanglement, extend the capabilities of existing systems. Quantum cryptography, as an example, provides physical layer security enforced by fundamental physical laws, while modern cryptographic techniques rely on assumptions of intractability of certain mathematical problems with limited computational power.
Rapid...
A number of new satiric forms -- or emergent genres -- have exploded in popularity almost simultaneously in recent years, all markedly political, all incorporating the real into the mimetic in striking ways, and all straddling the line between satire and serious political dialogue. This dissertation focuses on three of...
Numerical simulations have shown that black holes (BHs) have significant influence on the evolution of globular clusters (GCs), and therefore shape their observational features. Recently, a BH-main sequence star (MS) binary system has been observed in the Milky Way GC NGC 3201. Our group uses Cluster Monte Carlo (CMC) code...
Objectives: Poor infant health is associated with lower wellbeing later in life. Food insecurity has been associated with higher rates of some morbidities in young children. However, this relationship has not been well studied in infants younger than six months or in Kenya. Thus, we sought to determine the relationship...
The ideology scores of US Congress members over time, quantified from how similarly they voted on bills. I present an interactive visualization for the US Congress members’ ideology. The data used are ideology scores of US Congress members 1789-2015. The ideology scores are quantified from the Congress members’ voting records...
Using ab initio calculations, we discovered a quasi two-dimensional copper–bismuth nano sheet, which we call cubine. According to our predictions, single layers of cubine can be isolated from the recently reported high-pressure CuBi bulk material at an extremely low energetic cost, comparable to values to separate single layers of graphene...
Psychometric analyses can help illuminate how people approach clinical tests. To understand how health literacy (i.e., literacy for health information) might lead to biased assessment of emotional distress, we examined the psychometric properties of anxiety and depression questionnaires, using differential item functioning (DIF) analysis. Items were flagged for DIF if...
Our research group is currently working to develop the first cross-culturally validated household water insecurity scale. In order to do this, we have partnered with numerous collaborators to implement the survey in diverse ecological settings. As part of the survey, participants are asked to recall how long it takes to...
Firefly is an interactive tool that allows users to fly through any 3 dimensional dataset by rendering it on-the-fly. Here we present simulation data created as part of the FIRE galaxy formation collaboration. Interactively exploring data generates powerful intuition and helps one isolate regions of interest in the data using...
Levitation—the rising or hovering of an object in apparent defiance of gravity—is a captivating phenomenon with a wide range of applications. In this visualization, we demonstrate our newly discovered form of fluid dynamical levitation of small particles that may be 10, 100, or even 1000 times as dense as the...
A fractal is created by a Piecewise Isometry (PWI) which cuts a 2D object into pieces and rearranges those pieces to recreate the original object in a scrambled form. The PWI studied here splits a hemispherical shell into four pieces along cutting lines and rearranges them into a shuffled hemisphere....
Massive Black Holes, millions to billions of times more massive than our sun, exist in the centers of most galaxies. However, the formation and evolution of these objects through accretion of gas and mergers with other black holes is still a great mystery. LISA, a future space-based gravitational wave detector,...
This work introduces a novel optical 3D sensor principle and its implementation: the ‘single-shot 3D movie camera’. The camera is designed for the 3D measurement of macroscopic objects with scattering surfaces, e.g. human faces. It combines the acquisition of a dense point cloud displaying physically limited lateral resolution and depth...
These images show how the Facebook networks of 121 LGBTQ youth (Mage = 24.13 years) differ depending on how “out” these young people are about their identities. Using cluster analysis of survey data, we found LGBTQ youth managed outness in one of four ways: high overall outness (63.82%), low overall...
This visualization shows two-photon imaging of GCamp6f in hippocampal pyramidal neurons as a mouse navigates a virtual reality maze. These techniques give us an indirect measure of activity in neurons or small compartments of neurons in an awake, behaving animal. The hippocampus has been well characterized as playing an essential...
Mixing due to cutting-and-shuffling is studied at a fundamental level using 2D mappings known as Piecewise Isometries (PWI) which can create beautiful mixing patterns. The PWI studied here splits a hemispherical shell (HS) into four curved triangular pieces that are rearranged to make a shuffled HS. Applying the PWI repeatedly...