Low-dimensional materials have emerged as a promising platform for ultrathin electronic and optoelectronic devices. The span of electronic properties covers the spectrum from metallic through small and medium bandgap semiconductors to large bandgap insulators, providing all the necessary components to fabricate a variety of devices. Compared to bulk-semiconductor based devices,...
The active participation of external entities in the design and manufacturing flow has produced numerous hardware security issues. Among all the hardware security problems, piracy and overproduction are likely to be the most ubiquitous and expensive ones. Most leading-edge design houses have outsourced their fabrication to the offshore foundries for...
The goal of the work reported here was to answer two important questions with regards to LTVV use for patients with ARDS: 1) How do we measure adoption? and 2) What are the drivers of provider adoption? To this end, I have demonstrated the influence of patient height, hypoxemia severity,...
Researchers and educators have argued that productive learning may occur when young people have freedom to organize their activity based on their own interests and concerns. Schools increasingly provide “makerspaces” that allow students to design and build objects and technical devices of their choosing, and researchers have developed in-school programs...
This dissertation studies three topics in 19th and early 20th century economic history. Chapter 1 studies the causes behind low inter-regional migration from the American North to the South prior to the Civil War. Chapters 2 and 3 focus on topics in the economic history of Egyptian agriculture. Chapter 2...
Animals must establish the correct form during development. Regeneration is a process by which some animals reestablish their form following injury. This process requires both the generation of new missing cells after injury, and information to pattern new cells to reestablish the correct form. Planarian flatworms have an almost unlimited...
Techniques for achieving complete quantum control over atoms have been developed and perfected over the past four decades with great success. This work has led to multiple Nobel prizes and has been the catalyst for rapid advances in a broad array of research fields. A natural progression forward is to...
The ribosome, the cell’s machine for synthesizing proteins, can be thought of as the chef of the cell. Just as a chef reads a recipe and combines ingredients to create a dish, the ribosome reads cellular instructions and connects building block molecules (amino acids) to construct proteins. Like the final...
Chapter 1: Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein enzyme that counteracts the shortening of telomeres by catalyzing the addition of nucleotides to the 3’ ends of chromosomes, resulting in telomerase inhibition attracting interest as a strategy for cancer. Telomerase has also been implicated in other tumorigenic pathways such as DNA damage repair,...
Foreign currency debt has led to many crises in emerging markets. In the past decade, firms in emerging economies have drastically increased their foreign currency borrowing, making them significantly exposed to depreciation shocks. To reduce their exposure to external shocks, central banks have increased their use of regulation, such as...
Superalloys strengthened by γ′(L12)-precipitates in γ(f.c.c.)-matrix exhibit superior high temperature mechanical properties and environmental resistance over long periods of operation, making them ideal candidates for aerospace and energy conversion applications. The emerging class of superalloys based on Co-Al-W ternary system was identified with a melting temperature 50-100 ˚C higher than...
Self-Assembled Monolayers for MALDI-TOF Mass Spectrometry (SAMDI-MS) is a technique that combines self-assembling molecules of alkane disulfides on gold and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry. By using well-defined monolayers with functionalizations that both prevent non-specific adsorption onto the surface and presents immobilization handles, it is possible to pull out analytes of interest,...
During influenza A virus (IAV) infection, severe lung injury and death result from an exuberant host inflammatory response, or “cytokine storm”, orchestrated by pulmonary epithelial cells. The linear ubiquitin assembly complex (LUBAC), composed of SHARPIN, HOIL-1L and HOIP, is a critical regulator of NF-κB-dependent inflammation. To determine the impact of...
The importance of concern for others in the lives of emerging adults has been underestimated by emerging adult theory. In this set of studies, I explore emerging adults’ concern for others in the higher education context. I use three different samples, a group of 10 Latino emerging adults working to...
Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia in adults in the United States. Despite its prevalence, the etiology of AF and its adverse effects are not completely understood, which has made treatment of AF difficult. However, left atrial (LA) fibrosis is associated with worsening and propagating AF. Additionally, research...
The histone methyltransferase DOT1L methylates lysine 79 (K79) on histone H3 and is implicated in active transcription. Here we show that DOT1L is overexpressed in Prostate cancer (PCa) and is associated with poor clinical outcome. Genetic and chemical inhibition of DOT1L selectively impaired viability of androgen receptor (AR)-signaling competent PCa...
This work is composed of two separate projects that contribute to the field’s understanding of Neisseria gonorrhoeae genetics and physiology. First, I showed that N. gonorrhoeae mounts a substantial transcriptional program in response to hydrogen peroxide (HP), a prominent reactive oxygen species (ROS) encountered during infection. We measured which strain...
The continued existence and use of chemical warfare agents (CWAs) have necessitated the development of materials which can safely and efficiently decontaminate these toxic chemicals in an environmentally benign fashion. Among the most prevalent CWAs, nerve agents (sarin, VX) and blistering agents (sulfur mustard [HD]) are considered the most toxic...
The viscoelastic properties of microbial biofilms have attracted great interests in recent years due to the ubiquity of biofilms and their wide range of industrial and municipal applications causing tremendous societal impacts. Biofilms are predominantly architected by extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) matrices composed of bacterial cells and biopolymers secreted by...
In this dissertation, we study models and methods to address uncertainties that can vary in optimization problems. Robust optimization is a popular approach for optimization under uncertainty, especially if limited information is available about the distribution of the uncertainty. It models the uncertainty through sets and finds a robust optimal...
Nucleic acid drugs promise to revolutionize the development of therapeutics. They offer a platform for digital medicine, where systematic changes to the nucleic acid sequence can be utilized to target the entire human genome. However, nucleic acids suffer from a number of drawbacks, such as negligible cellular uptake and rapid...
Mineral inclusions in diamond, brought to the surface through kimberlitic eruptions, provide a unique glimpse into the geochemical inner workings of Earth’s deep interior. Diamonds source a wide range of depths in the mantle. While most diamonds originate from the upper 200 km of the Earth’s mantle, aptly called super-deep...
Episodic memory provides a means by which we reflect on the past, make decisions about the future, and form a learned identity. Episodic memory depends on the hippocampus as well as on the distributed set of regions that form a hippocampal-cortical network (HCN), including medial prefrontal, posterior cingulate, and medial...
Skeletal muscle is one of the most abundant tissues in the body and makes up over 40% of the total body mass. It is important for mobility and posture maintenance as well as plays a central role in whole body metabolism. Skeletal muscle is made up of bundles of muscle...
Dilute Al-Sc-Zr-Si-based aluminum alloys retain their strength for long periods of time at elevated temperatures due to a dispersion of nanometric, coherent, and coarsening-resistant Al3(Sc,Zr) (L12 structure) nanoprecipitates that are formed upon aging. These alloys are attractive for replacement of dense steels and costly Ti alloys in the 250–400 °C...
This dissertation examines the birth and rise of orthorexia nervosa, a proposed psychiatric diagnosis described as a pathological fixation with healthy eating. Orthorexia made its first public appearance in the pages of a popular magazine for yoga practitioners in 1997, and later in a self-help book on the subject. Despite...
In susceptible individuals, episodic memories of overwhelmingly stressful experiences can give rise to debilitating socio-affective symptoms, including social dysfunction. This occurs even when such memories are not easily accessed for retrieval. In this case, it is generally accepted that the restricted retrieval of such memories is due to their having...
The hippocampus has been identified as a critical structure for supporting spatial memory processes in both humans and animals alike. Many of these processes such as the ability to self-localize in a given environment as well as engage in goal-directed navigation are thought to depend on the location-specific firing of...
Water vapor condenses into liquid water when it encounters a cold surface. If the surface temperature is sufficiently low, freezing follows the condensation step, and the process is holistically referred to as condensation frosting. Both phase change processes are fundamental to many industries ranging from water harvesting, thermal management, solar...
Biogenic secondary organic aerosol (SOA) particles, produced by forest ecosystems across the globe, are principal, yet poorly understood constituents in the climate system. These atmospheric particles form when biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) react with atmospheric oxidants, leading to increasingly lower volatility oxidation products that partition into the condensed phase...
Molecules and materials featuring unpaired electrons are fundamental elements of modern energy, device, and imaging technologies. The high sensitivity of electronic spins to their surroundings renders these compounds further attractive as environmental sensors. In order to successfully realize these applications, the electronic spins must be precisely controlled. One promising strategy...
Demand Response (DR) is an approach that allows electricity users to actively participate in keeping supply-demand balance in power systems, or its future version, smart grid, in order to increase the system efficiency, lower consumers' electricity bills, and thus improve social welfare. To encourage users' participation in DR, a time-varying...
Understanding the complex genome-phenome associations behind human complex traits will be a primary focus for the practice of precision medicine in the future. Identifying the genetic variants that contribute to the inter- and intra- phenotypic variations of individuals, elucidating pleiotropic architecture of common complex traits, and demonstrating how personal biomedical...
The development of heavy metal semiconductors is a growing field of interest for their application in photovoltaics, light emission, and radiation detection. This is due to their robust ability to convert incident photons of visible wavelength and high energy into charge current while remaining stable, optimizable, and readily synthesizable. As...
With the ability to rapidly screen and manipulate genomes, the in depth study of the functional actors of biology—metabolites and proteins—is necessary to understand complex biochemistry in developmental and disease states. The analytical processes by which biological information is gained from metabolomics and proteomics experiments must also evolve with our...
Burkitt lymphoma (BL) is a B cell cancer that develops primarily in children and is associated with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). The EBV latent membrane protein 2A (LMP2A) drives BL in part by providing constitutively active pro-survival signaling. A double transgenic mouse model of BL expressing LMP2A and the oncogene MYC...
In this thesis I focus on two topics: planet-disk interaction and solar convection. These two seemingly separate topics are connected via a similar separation of timescales. Planets excite spiral waves in their disks on fast timescales compared to the time for the disk to viscously adjust to the angular momentum...
By showing how the heteroglot and tentative nature of medieval normative worlds furnishes a salutary alternative to contemporary epistemologies of the globe, this dissertation contributes to critical theory that deconstructs the globe as a modern concept defined as a transparent space of circulation and exchange. While studies of the global...
To survive, animals, including human beings, have developed an amazing ability to learn the constantly changing environment. Specifically, detecting specific odorants in a noisy, variable background is crucial for finding food and water, mating, and avoiding potential dangers. For this purpose, rodents have developed an olfactory system that is powerful...
This dissertation aims to redefine the concept of pain as it appears in literary studies and demonstrate how the new definition garners insight into the interwovenness of literature and physiology in the mid-eighteenth century. It challenges the claim that pain is opposed to language by adopting a new materialist concept...
Modeling the mechanical performance of metal produced with additive manufacturing (AM) has proven to be a challenging task. In the as-built state, these materials have been shown to exhibit strong heterogeneity and anisotropy. Even after post-processing, such as heat treatment or hot isostatic pressing and depending on the alloy, some...
Molecules are highly social: they recognize one another and form bonds with those they are attracted to and repel those they are not. Some molecules establish strong bonds, while others form weak, transient associations. These interactions are ubiquitous in Nature and are integral to life. For at the basis of...
The application of formal multilayer networks (MLNs)—networks which contain multiple types of relationships, data types, or other additional features of complexity and connectivity—has recently become popular in many fields. Areas of study ranging from social science to biology have utilized MLNs to explore, describe, and analyze interconnected complex systems. MLNs...
Metal Additive manufacturing (AM) processes build 3D objects by heating and consolidating material in a point-by-point manner. Unlike traditional manufacturing methods, AM allows the material properties of each point in the build to vary by controlling process conditions locally. The process parameters can be considered as inputs to the AM...
This dissertation describes modifications to the surface of colloidal semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) to improve their use as photocatalysts for charge transfer reactions. The surface atoms and ligands of these nanoparticles can interfere with direct charge transfer to a reagent by inhibiting binding, forming trap states, or acting as competitive...
Understanding the outcomes of interactions from assessing shoot traits has practical applications and has elucidated major ecological patterns. Roots and shoots differ in their functions and can differ in responses to abiotic and biotic stimuli. And while roots are more difficult to characterize because they tangle and are embedded in...
Label-free assays, and particularly those based on the combination of mass spectroscopy with surface chemistries, enable high-throughput experiments of a broad range of reactions. However, these methods can still require the incorporation of functional groups that allow immobilization of reactants and products to surfaces prior to analysis. In this thesis,...
In this dissertation I leverage new data from the global music recording industry to study the social foundations of creativity and the relationship between product novelty, gender, and commercial success. In Chapter 1, I investigate how different kinds of social connection influence the creation of novel cultural products. Using data...
This thesis explains the works that have been completed towards the Ph.D. thesis of the author and discusses the conclusions derived from the results, as well as what future holds for stress-related mobile health research. Main focus of the thesis is use of wearable sensors to understand physiological manifestation of...
Understanding structure-property relationships for polymer nanocomposites is one of the primary challenges in discovering new, light weight, multifunctional advanced materials. Polymer nanocomposites are a class of advanced materials comprised of soft polymer matrix and nano-filler inclusions. While it has been found qualitatively that enhancements of material properties could be achieved...