The Satake category is the category of perverse sheaves on the affine Grassmannian of a complex reductive group G. The global cohomology functor induces a tensor equivalence between the Satake category and the category of finite-dimensional representations of the split form of the Langlands dual group of G. We give...
The task of designing porous materials for use in specific applications requires a detailed understanding of the adsorption process and how adsorption is affected by material properties. Applications of interest include maximizing gravimetric or volumetric adsorption capacity for hydrogen and carbon dioxide and increasing the selectivity for carbon dioxide in...
Two subjects are the focus of this dissertation: Au/TiO2 catalyst used for oxidation of CO at low temperature and siloxane nanocages, a novel material (~2nm) recently developed in our group
While bulk gold is chemically inert, gold supported as nanoparticles is remarkably active for the oxidation of carbon monoxide at...
An efficient unified incremental high-level and physical-level synthesis algorithm was presented in Chapter 2, which enable the tight integration between high-level and physical-level design. Chapter 3 presented a temperature-aware high-level synthesis algorithm built upon the framework of Chapter 2. Temperature variations and hot spots account for reliability issue and require...
In this thesis, I argue that life and soul as analyzed in De Anima are examples of what Aristotle calls a "pros hen legomena" structure, a structure in which various things are said to be living in relation to one thing, which is the central meaning of life. The various...
Since its emergence, the Ginzburg-Landau theory has had a tremendous success in describing thermodynamic properties of superconductivity. In the case of superfluid 3He, not all five fourth-order parameters in the theory are known. Only four combinations of the five parameters have been experimentally established and theoretical attempts to calculate the...
I/O performance has perpetually lagged well behind that of processors. This gap is made even more pronounced in the field of high-performance computing. While simply adding more network bandwidth and increasing the number of storage units is a simple way to increase theoretical peak I/O bandwidth, the software libraries for...
The work described in this dissertation focuses on the optical characterization of micron-sized structures with mesoscale (100-1000 nm) features to investigate of the optical analog to the quantum corral. Lithographically patterned arrays of metallic rings and ellipses were used to study how light can be manipulated and confined within these...
A striking aspect of human cognition is our capacity for acquiring and using complex knowledge structures, from learning the rules of algebra, to understanding the causal workings of a combustion engine or the structure and processes of the U.S. Congress. These structured representations underlie our ability to generate new inferences,...
The most important managerial criteria in supply chains are how to manage product, information and cash flows, and how to maximize profits by either increasing the revenue or decreasing the costs. Although the maximum benefits can be achieved if everyone follows the central planner's suggestions; unfortunately, the individual maximum profits...
With aggressive scaling down of feature sizes in VLSI fabrication, process variations, crosstalk and buffering have become critical issues to achieve timing closure in VLSI designs. Timing analysis and optimization techniques need to consider each of them and also their interactions. There are many statistical timing analysis researches to handle...
The contents of this dissertation are divided into two sections: (1) the preparation and characterization of quaternary rare-earth chalcogenides and oxychalcogenides and (2) the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) spectroscopy of metallic nanoparticles fabricated by nanosphere lithography (NSL).
Single crystals of CsTmCoS3, CsYbCoS3, CsHoCoSe3, CsYbCoSe3, and CsYbZnSe3 have been prepared...
During interactions with our environment we must incorporate information about the mechanical properties of obstacles into our motor actions. Fundamental to these behaviors is the ability to simultaneously control movements of the hand while regulating the interaction forces that arise from contact with the environment. Although the neural control of...
Continuous fiber/epoxy composites have been widely used for structural applications due to their excellent mechanical properties, but the benefits of using these composites is limited by their lower than desired matrix-dominated properties. In this study, epoxy matrix in carbon fiber/epoxy composites was modified with graphite nanoplatelets to improve their mechanical...
Continental weathering and organic carbon (OC) burial in marine sediments are important processes because they act as sinks for atmospheric carbon dioxide. Continental weathering products provide information about provenance, marine sediment quality/quantity, denudation and continental crust composition. In this study I explore two topics that impact some of these issues...
MHC class II-restricted T cell responses are a common driving force of autoimmune disease. Numerous therapeutic strategies target CD4+ T cells hoping to attenuate autoimmune responses and restore self-tolerance. We have previously reported that i.v. treatment with antigen-pulsed, ethylenecarbodiimide (ECDI)-fixed splenocytes (Ag-SP) is an efficient protocol to induce Ag-specific tolerance...
This collection of essays on horizontal merger enforcement and dynamic contract breach addresses the question of what role, if any, should government play in enforcing the contracts of private parties? The government's appropriate role in these various settings depends, among other things, on the nature of the competition between private...
To navigate our environment we are often required to quickly and accurately derive simplified patterns from the complexity of life. This dissertation seeks to understand when the process of pattern perception occurs and when it goes awry and individuals falsely or inaccurately perceive patterns. I review the literature on various...
Humans determine the horizontal position of sound sources based on two cues: interaural time differences (ITDs) and interaural level differences (ILDs). Consistent with other evidence that these two cues are processed by separate neural mechanisms, Wright and Fitzgerald (2001) observed markedly different learning patterns in listeners who were trained on...
Theoretical analysis of DNA bridge-mediated electron transfer (ET) led to the proposal that photoinduced ET might occur via either superexchange or hopping mechanisms. Electron transfer has been proposed to occur via a superexchange mechanism at short distances and via a hopping mechanism at longer distances. However, a crossover in mechanism...