In the past decade, scholars, the news media, and the public have turned increased attention to the activity of atheists in the West. Atheism serves as a source of identity and community in todays society, signaling more than a simple lack of belief in god(s). This dissertation is a cultural...
Oxidation processes play an integral role in many industries, but questions still remain regarding the mechanisms of carbon-hydrogen bond activation and oxidation in free-radical and catalyzed processes. Microkinetic modeling is a powerful tool capable of examining oxidation processes at the mechanistic level to gain understanding and guide catalyst applications. This...
What does it mean for writing from the former French imperial territories of the Maghreb (Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia) to become Maghrebi literature? How does literature come to count as belonging to or appertaining to a particular place? Today, in the international spheres of the university and the literary market,...
Research shows that psychometrically-assessed spatial abilities (e.g., spatial visualization and spatial orientation) can be improved through training, and that some training yields improvements that are transferable to novel contexts and tasks (Uttal et al., 2013). While the training of these spatial abilities may be valuable for some forms of STEM...
Many democratic theorists suggest that harmonious relationship between groups are critical for democracy; however, far less is known about how everyday experiences promote or impede such intergroup harmony. In this dissertation, I explore a common, but overlooked, form of intergroup contact casual, brief experiences with outgroup strangers. I propose a...
Maxwell equations are behind an incredible number of physical phenomena, explaining the behavior of light, electricity and magnetism, from Gamma rays to ultra-low frequency radio-waves. Since their inception in 1861, many approximations have been derived, many devices have been modelled and fabricated to manipulate the electromagnetic fields, and more recently...
Raytracing is a long-established means to simulate physically accurate light propagation. Increasing availability and power of highly-parallel computing, such as cloud-based clusters and dedicated graphics hardware, means that rendering algorithms can produce high resolution output very quickly. This means raytracing can now be used as a forward model in optimization...
Parents play a crucial role in shaping the contexts within which young children develop, particularly in the early years of a childs life (Bornstein, 2002; Brooks-Gunn & Markman, 2005; Maccoby & Martin, 1983). Parenting is also one of the key pathways through which socioeconomic factors, such as maternal education, may...
According to contemporary estimates, the 1933 Soviet famine killed six to eight million people, more than two million of them in Ukraine. This dissertation studies causes and consequences of this famine. ', 'Chapter one evaluates the causes of the 1933 famine offered by historians in Ukrainian context. Three main explanations...
Gene regulatory networks contain multiple components including microRNAs (miRNAs) that coordinate regulation of genes to produce higher level cell functions. miRNAs are small non-coding RNA molecules that modulate gene expression post-transcriptionally by binding to short target motifs on mRNA transcripts to down-regulate target genes. Because miRNA regulation of genes is...
This dissertation analyzes archival materials to examine the relationship between reproductive governance in India and the political and scientific dynamics of the Cold War. In 1952, India became the first country to institute anti-natalist population control as a national policy goal, concentrating its efforts on female sterilization and the building...
The use of polymeric membranes have become ubiquitous in our daily lives. From simple chip bags to million-dollar cockpits, these membranes find diverse applications in packaging, protective coating, electronic device, gas and liquid separation, and medicine. The 2-dimentional geometry of the membranes offered unique mechanical and interfacial properties that often...
Ultrathin optical platform including two-dimensional materials and metasurfaces have emerged as potential candidates for novel nanophotonic applications. In this dissertation, I will present the possibility to achieve full active control of the electromagnetic waves with the platform in the flatland. We could achieve the amplitude control, which will be useful...
2018-1The human visual system has a remarkable ability for understanding material properties on the basis of texture appearance, such as', 'telling whether the food is fresh, the fabric is soft, the soil is wet, or the skin is dry. Such visual judgments of material properties mostly rely on the perception...
ABSTRACT', 'Reinventing Television and Family Life, 1960-1990', 'Hannah Spaulding', 'In the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, the field of television changed. A series of new electronic devices that interfaced directly with TV technology video cameras, home recorders, cable boxes, video calling systemswere introduced to the American public. These devices promised to...
Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disease characterized by the abnormal high blood glucose of patients. The defects in the hormonal regulation, including impaired insulin secretion, insulin action, or the combination of the two are usually the causes of such a disease. The elevated blood glucose also leads to a wide...
This dissertation interrogates the relationship between affect and blackness, as it is intimated in the materiality of water and its attendant sensations. My methodology draws from black feminist theory and metaphors extracted from the natural and neurosciences. In so doing, I grapple with the following questions, as they relate to...
This dissertation analyzes the early excavation, classification, and publication of Cypriot sculpture and its collection and display in European universal museums. The author argues that the events and intellectual climate of the nineteenth century profoundly and lastingly shaped the perception of the ancient Cypriot tradition, determining the island conventional place...
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a movement disorder that arises following the degeneration of dopamine-producing neurons of the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc). Patients experience a host of limiting motor symptoms such as rigidity, tremor, and a paucity of controlled movement generation. These symptoms often correspond with a predominance of abnormally...
Systems of colloids coated with high-information polymers are powerful tools for designing crystal lattice with tailorable properties or studying the fundamentals of crystallization. By changing the colloid-colloid interaction strength or colloid shape, different types of lattices can be assembled. In this thesis, I present novel coarse-grained models to describe high-information...