The T-box transcription factor, Tbx5, is involved in heart development and congenital disease. For example mutations in human TBX5 lead to Holt-Oram syndrome, a disease characterized by a range of heart and arm malformations. Tbx5 gene activity has been perturbed in several animal models including the chicken, mouse, and zebrafish....
The utilization of hydrofluoric acid for the preparation of silver vanadium oxide fluorides has been advanced for the synthesis of Ag<sub>4</sub>V<sub>2</sub>O<sub>6</sub>F<sub>2</sub> and Ag<sub>3</sub>VO<sub>2</sub>F<sub>4</sub>. Silver-rich metal oxide fluorides are important battery cathode materials due to the high reduction potential of silver vs. Li, which is made even higher by the incorporation...
Most organisms use rhythms of sunlight to synchronize their activity to the environment. These rhythms of activity are called circadian rhythms. The rhythms persist with near 24 hour periods when external synchronizing cues are absent. In mammals, the circadian clock is generated at the molecular level by a transcriptional/translational feedback...
This thesis contributes in two ways. First it describes a new framework for the systematic design of collective behaviors and solves a key stability issue under this design framework. In this thesis we apply this framework to solve three tasks in the swarm robotics field: connectivity maintenance, formation control and...
Sufficient vocal fold superficial hydration is indispensable to maintain normal vocal function and protect vocal fold epithelium against invasion of pathogenic agents. Vocal fold surface hydration is probably regulated by its electrophysiological properties. We hypothesized that the tight junction (TJ)-related paracellular barrier contributes to the maintenance of those properties. Therefore,...
Solder joint integrity is recognized as a key issue in the reliability of flip chip and ball grid arrays in integrated circuit packages. Significant reductions in the solder-joint interconnect size results in both the increased volume fraction of brittle intermetallics in the joint and joule heating and electromigration failure due...
T-cell activation is an essential step of the immune response, yet the cellular and molecular events underlying this complex process are not fully understood. Significantly, a comparative genome-scale transcriptional analysis of two T-cell subsets and the natural-mixed CD3+ population remains unexplored. Using microarrays, we investigated the temporal global transcriptional profile...
In this thesis we investigate the orbital evolution of planets in binaries.Unlike our own Solar System, at least one out of five planetary systems known to date is associated with additional stellar companions. Despite their large distances from the planetary systems, these stellar companions play an important role in significantly...
Research in cognitive and developmental psychology typically focuses on urban middle-class, European American populations. Although there has been a recent surge in psychological research that focuses on cultural variation (Cohen & Kitayam, 2007), little is known about the practices that support this variation. Knowledge about these practices is critical for...
Although chronic stress has been shown to be significantly associated with depression, this relationship has not received adequate attention, particularly in adolescent samples. One gap lies in the examination of whether particular domains of chronic interpersonal stress are uniquely related to risk for depression. Furthermore, the degree to which chronic...
Microarrays are powerful tools in gene expression assessment, protein profiling, and protein function screening, as well as cell and tissue analysis. With thousands of small array spots assembled in an ordered array, these small devices makes it possible to screen for multiple targets in a fast, parallel, high-throughput manner. The...
Improving cancer treatments are saving the lives of many young women, however these treatments often lead to premature infertility. The in vitro development of ovarian follicles would provide reproductive options to these women by supporting immature follicle growth following ovarian tissue cryobanking. In addition, the system provides a platform to...
Chapter 1: (Bounds on the Counterfactual Revenue Distributions in Auctions with Reserve Prices) In first-price auctions with interdependent bidder values, the distributions of private signals and values cannot be uniquely recovered from bids in Bayesian Nash equilibria. Non-identification invalidates structural analyses that rely on exact identification of the model primitives....
The genetic information in DNA is transcribed to mRNA and then translated to proteins, which form the building blocks of life. Translation, or protein synthesis, is hence a central cellular process. Decades of experimentation have elucidated a vast wealth of molecular information about discrete translation steps, but the sheer complexity...
Beside the Point: Places in Nabokov's The Gift Peter-John Thomas This dissertation is devoted to the habits of thought embodied in Vladimir Nabokov's last Russian novel, The Gift. Nabokov is famous for creating intricate verbal structures which, however, resist conversion into rigorous propositions. Two major categories of critical response have...
This study in media anthropology uses participant observation, interviews, questionnaires, and recorded broadcasts to analyze how people use FM radio technology in the Koutiala area of southeast Mali, and particularly how they use FM radio to produce locality by relating audience members to one another, to the dominant national culture,...
Background: More than 81 percent of African-American women are overweight or obese. In addition to being heavier than Whites, African-Americans have a harder time losing weight and are less likely to engage in physical activity. A growing body of literature suggests several barriers to physical activity that prevent African-American women...
The studies in this thesis are directed towards defining the signaling mechanisms that regulate astrogliosis after SCI and towards developing potential therapeutic techniques for modifying this process. The central hypothesis is that alteration of the extracellular milieu after SCI can limit the deleterious effects of glial scar formation and enhance...
All-optical switches have far reaching applications in both quantum and classical information processing. Most current all-optical switches depend on intense interactions between light and nonlinear media which may be extremely inefficient. The need for high switching beam powers have prevented all-optical switching from being very useful in most applications. Our...
Interfacial phenomena play a considerable role in many physical, chemical and biological systems. Some of these systems exhibit interaction of several interfaces. This thesis contains a study of two types of systems characterized by interacting interfaces. First, a theory of the formation of nanoscale porous structures in oxides of metals...
Problems involving irregularly shaped domains or embedded interfaces occur in a wide range of mathematical models. These include models in computational biology, fluid mechanics, and solidification. Numerical solutions for this type of problem can be difficult to obtain, and therefore a variety of methods have been devised to solve them....
My dissertation, entitled "Mobile Islands: Home, Migrancy and Identity in French Caribbean Narratives", examines the representation of home, space and migration in French-Caribbean literature and film. Using original narratives of Guadeloupean and Martinican writers and filmmakers, I demonstrate that the sociological phenomenon of mobility between the Caribbean and France has...
Recent assessment of material property requirements for blast resistant applications, especially for the naval ship hulls, has defined the need to design steels with high stretch ductility and fragment penetration resistance, along with high strength and adequate toughness. Using a system based computational materials design approach, two series of austenitic...
The majority of research on voluntary visual attention has focused primarily on specific attentional processes. While we know much about individual attentional abilities such as shifting attention among spatial locations, tracking multiple objects and maintaining attention for specific targets, we know little about how these attentional processes relate to one...
Microbiological dating of a crack's age depends upon establishing a viable method of sampling biomass from surfaces. Age is based upon the hypothesis that the amount of biomass on a given crack surface is proportional to the time that has passed since the surface was exposed. Presented herein is the...
The main theme of this dissertation are departures from standard assumptions in economic theory, specifically, departures from the model of subjective expected utility in decision theory.
Part 1 axiomatizes the robust control criterion of multiplier preferences introduced by Hansen and Sargent (2001). The axiomatization shows that the class of multiplier...
Several semiparametric estimators recently developed in the econometrics literature are based on the rank correlation between the dependent and explanatory variables. Examples include the maximum rank correlation estimator (MRC) of Han (1987), the monotone rank estimator (MR) of Cavanagh and Sherman (1998), the pairwise-difference rank estimators (PDR) of Abrevaya (2003),...
The new binuclear organo-zirconium and -titanium metal complexes {2,7-di-[(2,6diisopropylphenyl)imino]-1,8-naphthalenediolato group 4 metal complexes {1,8-(O)2C10H4-2,7[CH=N(2,6-iPr2C6H3)]2}Zr2Cl6(THF)2 (FI2-Zr2) and {1,8-(O)2C10H4-2,7-[CH=N(2,6-
i 2 t
Pr2C6H3)]2}Ti2Cl6(THF)2 (FI -Ti2) are compared to the mononuclear analogues {3- Bu-2(O)C6H3CH=N(2,6-iPr2C6H3)}ZrCl3(THF) (FI-Zr1) and {3-tBu-2-(O)C6H3CH=N(2,6-
i
Pr2C6H3)}TiCl3(THF) (FI-Ti1), respectively, in ethylene polymerization and ethylene + olefin copolymerization processes. The comonomers studied...
Assembly of the large and small subunits of the <em>E. coli</em> ribosome is a complicated process that involves transcription, processing, and modifying of the ribosomal RNA, the binding of ribosomal proteins, and the folding of the particles into complex structures. A number of ribosome assembly factors, including maturation factors, GTPases,...
My dissertation argues that certain continuities among U.S. theatre collectives in the 20th and 21st centuries have gone unnoticed largely because the aesthetics and politics of these companies are seemingly so unrelated. These continuities, which connect the 1960s' anarcho-pacifist spectacles of the Living Theatre to the contemporary "community" theatre of...
Saccades are rapid eye movements that bring visual images into focus by placing them on the fovea. The control of accurate and precise saccades is essential for normal visual perception of the world around us. Disruptions in saccade production are the hallmark of several neurological disorders such as schizophrenia and...
Latent membrane protein 2A (LMP2A) and LMP2B are viral proteins expressed during Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) latency in EBV-infected B cells both in cell culture and in vivo. Although Lyn has been shown to be important in mediating LMP2A signaling, it is still unclear if Lyn is used preferentially or if...
A critical challenge in improving the quality of life for spinal cord injury survivors is to restore the capacity to grasp and manipulate objects. While progress has been made to restore hand function by using functional electrical stimulation (FES) to activate muscles, providing the means to control the multiple degrees...
This thesis is organized into three essays, each with particular insights involving public policy and family formation:
In the first essay, I address the well-documented correlation between the prestige of the university and the labor market income of its graduates by investigating whether a possible medium for this effect is...
The expansion of public education at the beginning of the twentieth century had a profound effect on the American economy. This dissertation explores the impact of changing educational institutions on both individuals and communities with a study of Iowa during its introduction of modern grammar schools and high schools during...
I show that the speed of price adjustment to aggregate technology shocks is substantially larger than to monetary policy shocks. In the context of large Bayesian Vector Autoregression models, I establish that aggregate and disaggregate prices adjust very quickly to technology shocks, while they only respond sluggishly to monetary policy...
Most cognitive research on conceptual structure has studied undergraduate populations and either natural (biological) or artificial (experiment-specific) categories. This project investigates how people with extensive, rich knowledge about a complex real-world domain organize and use that knowledge. The research extends prior work on differences among types of experts within biological...
Tissue engineering offers a promising approach for the replacement of diseased or injured tissues, and is based upon the premise that cells can be induced to form new tissues when presented with the appropriate set of environmental cues. Polymer scaffolds play a central role in most tissue engineering strategies by...
A multicomponent bimodal poly(vinyl acetate) (PVAc) polymer composite has been scientifically designed to increase biaxial plastic flow stabilization for the achievement of large biaxial deformations. For this, a systems-based approach was used for the computational materials design of a high performance bubblegum whose mean in-vivo bubble diameter exceeds that of...
The light field is a 4D function that describes the flow of light in all directions through every point in free space. Digital cameras only capture a 2D projection of the 4D light field entering the camera lens. In this dissertation I modify the light field as it enters a...
The safe and efficient storage of hydrogen is possibly the chief obstacle to its use as a fuel on a large scale. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are well poised to provide unique solutions to hydrogen storage, and gas storage in general, a result of their crystalline, porous networks that present the...
Au nanoprisms are a new type of inorganic nanoparticle that is particularly interesting because these particles can be made in high yield, are composed of a metal with well known surface chemistry, exhibit strong, architecture and environment-sensitive optical features, and have well-defined crystallographic facets. All of these features make Au...
With the interference of several coherent beams, a periodical potential is produced for the particles trapped inside. The theoretical calculations show that the optical force applied on the particle in such optical lattice is in sinusoidal form. The force amplitudes vary greatly depending on the ratio of the particle size...
Forest Politics in Colonial and Postcolonial Kenya, 1940-1990s Alphonse Omondi Otieno In the period 1940-1990s, the Kenyan forestry policy evolved from an emphasis on preservation to a combination of programs which embodied both rural Africans' interests and practices and state interests in environmental issues. Using four cases from the western...
For all its significance in world affairs, the United Nations is full of paradoxes. As a system - i.e. as a collection of independent yet interrelated entities - its contradictions derive from the juxtaposition of forces encouraging fragmentation and calls for improved harmonization. On its part, the reality of inter-organizational...
The vertebrate brain, which is made up of a vast array of individual neurons, is responsible for controlling numerous functions and behaviors, including distinguishing between visual cues, learning to navigate in a new environment, or making complex decisions. These neurons form specific networks that receive, process, and integrate chemical and...
I examine how consumers' purchase' decisions and intentions of purchases are affected by uncertainty about future deals (temporary price cuts or sales) for a product and how these results affect retailers' optimal pricing and marketing strategies. First I look at the effects of uncertainty about the timing of deals (i.e....
As device sizes decrease, more functionality can be placed in an integrated circuit. Therefore, the design complexity of these circuits increases. To deal with complexity, designers move to higher abstraction levels. Currently, the highest abstraction level is the system-level. In our work we investigate the synthesis and verification problem at...
This dissertation studies whether stock mergers creates value for acquirers. The first chapter of this dissertation conducts a comprehensive review of the existing merger literature relevant to this topic. It includes existing merger theories, empirical studies on whether mergers are value destroying or value creating, and methodological issues on empirical...
Resource recovery is a promising category of polymer recycling where polymeric waste is converted via thermal or chemical means to monomer and chemical feedstocks. Specifically, pyrolysis is an attractive method because of its simplicity and ability to handle a heterogeneous feedstock. Polymer pyrolysis is characterized by a complex free radical...
End-Labeled Free-Solution Electrophoresis, or ELFSE, is an alternative strategy for DNA sequencing that proposes to eliminate the need for a viscous sieving matrix for size-based DNA separation. In this bioconjugate method, a perturbing entity or "drag-tag" is attached to differently sized DNA fragments produced by the Sanger reaction. This drag-tag...
This work explores the development and implementation of a biofilm model for multiple solid species and multiple dissolved components. The model makes use of several different advanced numerical methods in order to achieve the goal of describing the behavior of biofilms growing in wastewater treatment reactors. Using the model we...
Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. While many therapies have been used to treat vascular disease symptomatically, gene therapy offers a means of treating the molecular dysfunctions driving disease pathogenesis. Unfortunately, gene therapy has achieved only modest therapeutic success in clinical trials due to a...
Herpes simplex virus (HSV) infection of host cells requires virus attachment to the cell surface and subsequent membrane fusion between the virus envelope and host cell membrane to deliver the nucleocapsid containing the viral genome into the host cell. A proposed mechanism for HSV glycoprotein-induced membrane fusion is gD binding...
The promise of a clean, renewable, and abundant energy supply make the efficient conversion of solar energy to electricity a compelling scientific and societal goal. In the following chapters, I will describe my efforts to advance one class of photovoltaic technology, dye-sensitized solar cells, by demonstration and characterization of unexplored...
The mechanisms governing selective CaCO3 crystal nucleation in living organisms remain unclear. For example, nacreous layers from the inner surfaces of shells are built as brick-and-mortar complexes of plate-like aragonite single crystals and organic layers. Unstable [001] surfaces of calcite columns in prismatic layers are also stabilized by organic molecules....
In the first chapter we analyze profits and efficiency implications of a relation between an upstream duopoly and downstream monopoly in Hotelling linear city model. While exclusive contracts maximize the monopolist's profit, at the same time socially they are inefficient. Linear prices, while more efficient, usually also do not achieve...
Polarized epithelial cells are divided by tight junctions into an apical membrane domain, which faces the lumen of an organ, and a basolateral domain, which is in contact with underlying connective tissues. To establish and maintain polarity, newly synthesized and recycling transmembrane proteins are sorted to either the apical or...
We present initial results from Hertz/VPM, the first submillimeter polarimeter employing the dual Variable-delay Polarization Modulator (dual-VPM). This device differs from previously used polarization modulators in that it operates in translation rather than mechanical rotation. We discuss the basic theory behind this device, and its potential advantages over the commonly...
This dissertation consists of three essays on the identification analysis of econometric models.
The first essay explores the identification question in semiparametric binary response models when all regressors have discrete support. I suggest a recursive procedure that finds sharp bounds on the parameter of interest and can be applied to...
The idea of the unity of audition and vision has been a topic of interest since the time of ancient Greece. Investigation of this idea has continued to grow in many areas, especially in psychology, music, visual art, and computer science, most notably since the invention of the world's earliest...
Breakout reactions from the CNO cycles leading into the rp-process in explosive stellar hydrogen burning environments have been studied using the Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System (ATLAS). Earlier work is reported and summarized with an introduction to the beam, target and detector development in the nuclear astrophysics group at Argonne...
Traditional classroom practices communicate epistemic commitments and goals that might be contrary to those needed for meaningful participation in scientific inquiry practices. In this dissertation, I explore how traditional classroom practices influence students' participation in the practice of scientific argumentation. I address this through a two-pronged approach. First, given that...
A pyramidal neuron receives thousands of inputs spread throughout its dendritic tree, which it must integrate into a decision about whether or not to fire action-potential output. Since action potentials are the primary means by which these neurons communicate with their network partners, understanding this input-output relationship is critical for...
This dissertation consists of three self-standing essays, each of which focuses on a dialogue from Plato's later period. Together, they touch on some of his well-known views in metaphysics and moral psychology, from his theory of forms to his theory of the tripartite soul. But the topic that unifies these...
In the first part of the dissertation I study mechanism design under limited communication. Chapter 1 offers a detailed analysis of auctions with simultaneous limited communication. I solve for both welfare and revenue maximizing equilibria. The striking feature of optimal equilibria is that they are asymmetric even when the setup...
Chagas heart disease, caused by infection with the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, is still regarded as a major public health problem in Central and South America. The finding of cardiac specific autoimmunity during infection in both humans and experimental animals has provided a basis for investigation of its potential role...
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of applied improvisation and composition assignments that were related to and reinforcing of curriculum content on fifth-grade students' ability to sight-read traditional music notation, ability to learn to play the soprano recorder, and understanding of music theory. Specifically, the research...
Periods of time characterized by widespread accumulation of organic carbon (Corg) -rich deposits have been interpreted to form as a result of increased rates of marine primary production and oxygen-deficient conditions in bottom and pore waters. Yet, debates persist regarding the source of nutrients (in particular phosphorus (P)) to marine...
The goal of this dissertation was to elucidate the coalescence of vacancies in the cubic polytype of silicon carbide in a nuclear reactor relevant system. Large-scale empirical potential atomistic simulations were employed and the exploration of long time-scale behavior was performed through a new application of the parallel replica dynamics...
This dissertation argues that the National Science Foundation's role in, and influence on, the development of large scale scientific and technological systems, most notably improvements to U.S. information infrastructure, can best be understood through an examination of the NSF's institutional history. Because of the Foundation's weakened starting position at its...
Micro/nanoscale friction behavior has drawn a great deal of attention because it can reveal friction behavior at the interface level and ultimately lead to the discovery of the origin or real mechanism of friction. Surface wettability is an important property of solid surfaces and has been widely used in fundamental...
This thesis deals with three problems encountered in micro- and nano-fluidics: linear stability analysis of electrokinetic mixing in icrochannels, development of a general purpose numerical technique for fully resolved simulation of electrohydrodynamic particulate flows, and studying the phenomenon of molecular scale slip next to boundaries in micro- and nano-channels.
Mixing...
As in other parts of the global south, economic difficulties in rural areas of Bolivia have forced many of Bolivia's indigenous people to migrate to urban areas such as El Alto, where formal employment and access to services are limited. Women are particularly vulnerable as they must balance economic activities...
Phagocytosis is an essential mechanism for clearance of pathogens, dying cells, and other unwanted debris in order to maintain tissue health in the body. Macrophages execute this process in the peripheral immune system, but in the brain microglia act as resident macrophages to accomplish this function. In the peripheral immune...
The Witten Laplacian corresponding to a Morse function on the circle is studied using methods of complex WKB and resurgent analysis. It is shown that under certain assumptions the low-lying eigenvalues of the Witten Laplacian are resurgent.
Gonadotropins LH and FSH are secreted by the pituitary in response to hypothalamic GnRH and act to stimulate ovarian follicle development, steroid production and ovulation. Gonadal steroids, including estrogen, enter the circulation and provide neuroendocrine feedback at the hypothalamus and/or pituitary. Estrogen provides negative feedback to suppress gonadotropin release throughout...
The semiconductor-based Quantum Cascade Laser (QCL) offers several key advantages over gas lasers, solid-state lasers, and other semiconductor-based mid-infrared lasers. While the QCL has historically operated best in the λ ~ 7-9 μm range using InP-based materials, a major challenge has been to achieve a high-power, room-temperature continuous-wave (CW) operation...
Cells are regulated by a combination of soluble stimuli and adhesive interactions with other cells and the extracellular matrix (ECM). We are developing systems to present ECM and cytokine receptor ligands in a defined manner for applications in hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell (HSPC) culture. We hypothesize that the controlled,...
In this thesis we study protein folding with external force. In Part I we simulate the folding or unfolding procedure based on the two-state model. For constant-velocity experiments, the simulation results fit the experimental results. For constant-force experiments, we introduce cooperativity between domains to explain the different behavior between single...
Kinesin-1 is a motor protein that transports cargo along microtubules. Inside cells, the majority of kinesin-1 is regulated to conserve ATP and ensure its proper intracellular distribution and coordination with other motors. Regulated kinesin-1 is folded in half, and interactions between coiled-coil regions near the N-terminal enzymatically active heads and...
A tetramer model for HIV-1 Integrase (IN) with DNA representing the LTR termini was previously assembled which predicted amino acid residues on the enzyme surface that interact with the LTR termini (Chen et al, 2006). A separate structural alignment of HIV-1, SIV, and ASV INs predicted which of these residues...
The recent years have witnessed a large number of emerging applications in location based services, thanks to the wide spread use of GPS devices, cellular phones, RFID tags and mobile sensor nodes. A fundamental technology that enables such services is the efficient management of the vast volume of spatio-temporal information...
The de novo design of bio-inspired materials with precisely controlled properties is challenging, but has potential applications in nano-biotechnology. Applications range from nanometer scaled assemblies to three-dimensional scaffolds for tissue engineering. Genetic engineering of protein-based polymers offers distinct advantages over traditionally synthesized polymers, de novo proteins can be produced with...
This dissertation traces the meaning and scope of early modern complaint poetry. I argue that what I understand as a secular "poetics of dissatisfaction" arose to fill the void left when religious auricular confession was no longer an institutionalized practice, and that this mode of literary expression was itself shaped...
Loneliness, Stress, and Depression over the Transition to Adulthood: Interpersonal and Physiological Pathways Leah Darrah Doane During the transition into adulthood, youth experience substantial stressful changes as they navigate shifts in their interpersonal, familial, educational and economic domains of life. This dissertation aims to understand how the unique experiences of...
The goal of this dissertation is to improve our understanding of the driving forces behind short-term movements in important aggregate variables such as exports, imports, the trade balance, output, investment, and employment. The first chapter contrasts the cyclical behavior of the trade balance and trade flows in a group of...
The growing worldwide threat of antibiotic-resistant pathogens has necessitated a constant search for new classes of antibiotics. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are integral components of innate immunity in virtually every living organism, and, due to their proven efficacy over millions of years of evolution, are considered promising leads for new antibiotic...
Recent work points out the importance of the solid-solid interface in explaining the high photoactivity of mixed phase TiO2 catalysts. The goal of this research was to probe the synthesis-structure-function relationships of the solid-solid interfaces created by the reactive direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering of titanium dioxide. I hypothesize that...
One of the central features of the now half-century old theory of the microscopic origins of superconductivity in elemental materials is the correlations between pairs of electrons with opposite spin and momentum. The constituent electrons of these Cooper pairs have the unusual property that their mean spatial separation is much...
Motivated by the rich variety of complex patterns observed on the surface of fluid layers that are vibrated at multiple frequencies, we investigate the effect of such resonant forcing on systems undergoing a Hopf bifurcation to spatially homogeneous oscillations. We use an extension of the complex Ginzburg-Landau equation (CGLE) that...
Stochastic programming models static or dynamic optimal decision making under uncertainty. In contrast to deterministic mathematical programming, stochastic programming generally uses expectation functionals in objective or constraints over known or partially known distributions of the problem data. Its features many decision variables under complicated constraints over discrete time periods. Its...
The overall objective of this thesis is to develop a package of high-resolution, non-invasive experimental and numerical approaches to observe in situ pore-scale geometry modification due to colloid deposition, and quantitatively predict its effects on the large-scale transport properties of the porous medium. High-energy synchrotron-based X-ray difference micro-tomography (XDMT) was...
This dissertation contains three essays that investigate various factors affecting firms' choice of quality in the context of nursing homes.
The first essay examines how strategic interactions with competitors affect quality levels selected by nursing homes. I explore nursing homes' responses to minimum nurse staffing standards imposed in two large...
The present thesis presents a new application of dynamic constructivism (Hong, Morris, Chui, & Benet-Martinez, 2000; Morris & Fu, 2001) to teamwork process in creativity in multicultural teams. With its roots in cognitive psychology, dynamic constructivist theory posits that varying values, social structures, and norms within cultures create different knowledge...
>"Surprising Metamorphoses: Transformations of Race in Early American Literatures," analyzes early American literary representations of race within the context of contemporaneous belief systems. Contrasting sharply with subsequent periods, much late eighteenth-century thought conceptualized race as an external, mutable bodily condition that could change over time. Identifying how this thinking informs...
In this work, electron beam induced current (EBIC) and scanning photocurrent microscopy (SPCM) were used to quantitatively investigate the electronic properties of silicon nanowire devices. For the first time, it was shown that minority carrier diffusion lengths in phosphorous-doped silicon nanowires are significantly reduced from their bulk values because of...
This dissertation is composed of three chapters, each contributing to different aspects of the literature of partially identified econometric models.
In the first chapter, I introduce a bootstrap procedure to perform inference in the class of partially identified econometric models defined by finitely many moment equalities and inequalities. I provide...
Increasing interest in long-life bone implants with reduced mechanical properties reducing the stress-shielding effect and a structure mimicking bone porous architecture has encouraged study and development of fabrication methods for porous NiTi. The main objective of this work was to advance these goals by developing new processing procedures for porous...
Several surface wave tomographic studies of the upper mantle structure beneath North America are presented, which take advantage of high quality seismic data, primarily recorded in the last decade, to create better resolved S-wave tomographic models. The first study presents a regional 3D model, IL05, of the upper mantle beneath...