Most lubricants contain a series of additives that reduce friction and wear, and protect contacting surfaces. The design of these additives must be modernized to meet the challenges involved with high operating temperatures, extreme environmental conditions, and increasingly stringent environmental regulations. This research demonstrates three novel lubricant additive strategies that...
The Pseudomonas aeruginosa type III secretion system delivers effector proteins directly into target cells, allowing the bacterium to modulate host cell functions. ExoU is the most cytotoxic of the known effector proteins and has been associated with more severe infections in humans. Previous studies have shown that ExoU is a...
Some five years ago, during the first year of my assistantship at the Music Academy in Katowice, I required students to analyse some of Penderecki's early, so-called "sonoristic" pieces. The outcome of that assignment proved unsatisfactory, however, because the students tended to describe Penderecki's pieces as chaotic assemblages of sound...
In the near future, self-driving or driverless vehicles will operate without human control, enabling passengers to use their time in new ways. This opens up avenues for designing new interactions and experiences for individuals or groups traveling in an automobile. For that scenario, automobile manufacturers propose developing bigger and better...
The promise of next-generation electronics, which combines features such as mechanical flexibility, optical transparency, and relatively low-cost, has stimulated tremendous research efforts during the past few years. As perhaps the most fundamental component of an electronic circuit, the design and optimization of the thin film transistor (TFT) is of great...
In vivo, substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc) dopaminergic neurons exhibit three spiking patterns – irregular, regular, and bursting. These distinct modes of activity are thought to underlie the different roles that dopamine (DA) plays in target structures within the basal ganglia. In particular, burst spiking in SNc DA neurons is...
In his Nobel lecture Herbert Kroemer famously stated that “The interface is the device”. While he made this statement in the context of semiconducting heterostructures, it has proven to be just as relevant for more complex materials, such as the transition metal oxides. In particular, the 2-D conducting gas that...
My research interests, which span organic, inorganic, physical and biochemistry, have focused broadly on photo-, magneto- and redox-active molecules, especially those with potential applications in organic photovoltaics, spintronics and electronics. My research under the joint supervision of Professor Wasielewski and Professor Fraser Stoddart has concentrated upon understanding electronic and magnetic...
This dissertation explores a form of performance I call “ototheatre,” which is a mobile and participatory audience experience executed with portable sound technology. Ototheatre is an emergent artistic form that sits at a convergence of contemporary technologies and audience consumption habits. Case studies, including smartphone applications and new theatrical works...
This dissertation uses several interrelated methods derived from corpus linguistics, statistics, and machine learning to infer a number of historically significant voice-leading schemas in a corpus of eighteenth-century Neapolitan solfeggi (exercises for voice with bass accompaniment). The goal of this work is to gain insights not only into the characteristics...