In this dissertation I examine how the government should respond to sovereign risk and show that it has implications on the optimal behavior of the government. In Chapter 1, I look into international reserve management. In Chapter 2, I analyze the effects of sovereign risk on the size of fiscal...
ABSTRACTUnderstanding Micro-macroscopic Phenomena of Tribological Fluids and Surfaces
Mechanical power and motion are transmitted through interfaces under contact and relative motion. Friction is inevitable, which can lead to higher operating and energy costs, and severe frictional rubbing can result in material damage and cessation of motion. A deep understanding of...
The work presented in this thesis is aimed at developing surface coatings for two specific applications: 1) the self-cleaning surfaces and 2) fouling control in water filtration membranes. Since all materials interact with their environment through their surfaces, tailoring surface properties by implementing surface coatings can greatly affect their performances...
This project uses the political and environmental history of maquiladoras—duty-free assembly plants along the U.S.-Mexico border—to offer new insights into two pivotal moments in the history of the U.S political economy: the poverty eradication plans of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and the neoliberal growth models of the late twentieth century....
A series of theories and models are developed and used to investigate the growth of protective oxide films on metal and alloy surfaces for cases in which Wagner's classical model of oxidation does not hold. First, irreversible thermodynamics is applied to formulate a model for the outward growth of rocksalt...
Unmournable Void: Tending-Toward the Dead and Dying in Contemporary Black Performance and Visual Art, explores critical artistic practices that tend to the historical conditions of anti-black violence resulting from transatlantic slavery, colonialism, and apartheid. This triad of regimes produced the Black condition as the unmournable void lived in close proximity...
The Quincke effect is an electrohydrodynamic instability which gives rise to a torque on a dielectric particle in a uniform DC electric field. Previous studies reported that a sphere initially resting on the electrode rolls with steady velocity. In this thesis I report the experimental discovery of another regime, where...
Fluorescence microscopy has become a widely used tool in many research areas. However, its spatial resolution, limited to 250 nm by the diffraction limit of light, has restricted direct observation of details of ultrastructural biology. In recent years, spectroscopic single-molecule localization microscopy (sSMLM), one of super-resolution imaging techniques, has been...
Robots can be capable partners when interacting with humans, but their value is largely dependent on how information is communicated in that partnership. In physical human-robot interaction, information is communicated via motion---configurations, velocities, forces, and torques. The autonomy interprets these implicit signals using metrics, which ultimately drive the the autonomy....
The need to rapidly develop and produce life-saving vaccines and therapeutics is critical for overcoming pandemics in a global economy. Recent advances in automation and cell-free systems have opened new avenues for expediting optimization and production of biologic vaccines and therapeutics. A key consideration for the development of protein biologics...