A central question in biology is how the flow of genetic information—from DNA to RNA to protein—is regulated. Regulatory mechanisms exerted at the level of DNA and protein have been described in detail but by contrast, little is known regarding the regulation of RNA. Methylation on N6-adenosine (m6A) is the...
This dissertation seeks to explain the discursive origin, development, and transformation of “Republican anticommunism,” and how and why this state-originated ideology continues to shape Vietnamese exile communities today. The dissertation focuses on examining mechanisms that allows certain narratives produced by the Republic of Vietnam to persist, despite the regime changes,...
Over the past two decades, the field of N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) organocatalysis has distinctively enabled the construction of enantioenriched heterocycles, and the power of cascade and one-pot processes has led to an ever-increasing level of synthetic efficiency in the assembly of complex architectures. Here these tools are employed in concise,...
A one-time, unilateral injury to the developing brain can interrupt the typical process of development and result in motor impairments that evolve over the course of the whole life-span. The timing of injury relative to neural development has implications for the continued refinement of the nervous system and the descending...
The policies of secular governments in constitutionally secular countries are at times marked by the influence of religious politics. Religious politics is specifically defined here as a politics of extending the norms of religion into the public sphere through religious legislation. Thus, some governments lend the state’s coercive capacity to...
Non-planar and curved architectures of otherwise flat 2D materials present an important paradigm for nanoscale analysis and design of emergent material properties. Atomically-thin transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have emerged at the forefront of the 2D materials field in recent years largely due to their attractive and tunable chemical, optical, and...
Melanin is a functional biopolymer most commonly associated with human skin pigmentation, where it serves as a radiation protection agent, shielding us from the harmful effects of UV radiation. However, melanin is also present in human ears, eyes, hair, and brains, serving a variety of functions. In fact, melanin...
Superconductivity is a fascinating manifestation of quantum mechanics on a macroscopic scale that has led to greater insights of the strongly correlated physics of a large number of interacting electrons ever since its discovery $\sim$ 100 years ago in elemental Hg. The unconventional superconductors that are based on uranium offer...
Exploratory phase stability analysis in Materials Science has two primary goals: (a) Characterizing the evolution of the materials single phase field in composition space to identify solubility and electronic dopability limits and (b) Accelerated prediction of new phases of technological importance. In this thesis we reorganize defect theory --- the...
The era of quantum information science (QIS) can usher revolutionary new capabilities ranging from quantum computation to quantum sensing. At the core of these technologies is the fundamental unit of QIS, the quantum bit or qubit. The power of qubits over their classical counterparts lies in their ability to be...