Transcription plays a pivotal role in the transfer of genetic information within living organisms. It serves as the initial step in gene expression, allowing cells to convert the instructions encoded in their DNA into functional molecules. Eukaryotic transcription initiation is a complex and dynamic process that requires joint efforts from...
Gastrointestinal (GI) colonization by Klebsiella pneumoniae is a risk factor for subsequent infection as well as transmission to other patients. Additionally, colonization is achieved by many strain types that exhibit high diversity in genetic content. However, how K. pneumoniae achieves colonization and whether the genetic factors it uses differ by...
This dissertation uses the case of Colombia to examine the causes and reproductive mechanisms of civil wars that last more than fifty years, which I call perpetual civil wars. It draws on network analysis of violent events and political claims, content analysis of official archival documents and historical records of...
The political history of late twentieth-century Southern Africa was dominated by violent liberation struggles against settler-colonial domination in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. All five countries experienced prolonged settler colonialism, followed by conflicts in which revolutionary national liberation movements (NLMs) sought to both end settler-colonial domination and build...
Recent experiments in participatory democracy, such as Iceland’s 2013 Constitutional Reform process to Chicago’s annual participatory budgeting process, have empowered members of the public to directly make policy decisions. These new participatory democratic institutions depend on citizens having capacity to organize new institutions and the capacity to participate in them....
Derivative-free optimization (DFO) has received growing attention due to important problems arising in practice. Various research communities, ranging from machine learning to engineering design, have adopted distinct DFO methods. In this thesis, we present extensive studies as a meaningful step towards a comprehensive understanding of DFO methods. We study the...
In this work, I try to understand how the movements, attitudes, styles, and positions of the body in representational artworks can be understood as gestures—that is, as moments that interrupt the unfolding of narrative time and produce an interval. The interval is not merely a space that opens up between...
Necessity is the mother of innovation. In the wake of the pandemic, with no flow of samples and limited fabrication techniques available, necessity demanded a new material platform and adaptable methods to make complex oxide samples worth measuring. The material platform was KTaO3 , the younger successor to the mainstay...
Drying oils have been used as a binding medium for oil paints since the 15th century. These oil paints transition from a liquid-like paste to a solid-like film as a result of crosslinks forming between the oil molecules. These reactions have been extensively studied chemically, but other material properties are...
Temperature affects all biological processes, from the rate of cellular growth and metabolism to the stability of proteins that make up the machinery of life itself. Thus, all organisms must have the capacity to detect and respond to external temperature. Thermosensation endows animals with the ability to sense and respond...