ABSTRACTFor several decades, dams have played an essential role in human development. In many low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), the construction of dams remains an integral part of industrialization and modernization. However, dam construction and associated infrastructure have significantly contributed to socioecological destruction and population displacement. For example, the construction of...
One of the pressing concerns of the fifteenth century was monastic reform, and reformers of the Observant movement rose to meet the challenge by attempting to return monastic houses to stricter observance of their earliest rules and governing documents. In this dissertation, I examine how Dominican nuns in German-speaking parts...
For some inducible genes, the rate and molecular mechanism of transcriptional activation depend on the prior experiences of the cell. This phenomenon, called epigenetic transcriptional memory, accelerates reactivation, and requires both changes in chromatin structure and recruitment of poised RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) to the promoter. A well-established model for...
Advances in methods to sequence and manipulate DNA have enabled systems that enzymatically encode information in cellular DNA in situ. These systems, broadly categorized as molecular recorders, couple signals of interest to the expression of DNA modification enzymes, resulting in signal-dependent changes in DNA sequence. While a variety of molecular...
Preterm birth (PTB) is the leading cause of infant morbidity worldwide. Approximately 380,000 babies are born prematurely in the USA every year. Estrogen (E2) and progesterone (P4) play essential roles during pregnancy and labor; a clear understanding of their action mechanisms, however, is lacking. E2 and P4 function by activating...
With the potential to bypass congested urban road networks and take advantage of the openness of the sky, advanced air mobility (AAM) promises to provide a faster alternative mode for people and goods. However, AAM will also require a new paradigm for the movement of aircraft around an airspace network...
Carbon nanomaterials, such as graphene and graphene oxide, have outstanding mechanical strength, stiffness, and toughness that surpass those of materials currently used to build structures. However, these properties are limited to the nanoscale and have not yet been attained in macroscopic composites containing carbon nanomaterials. To integrate the mechanical properties...
This dissertation models and simulates optimization problems to find the optimal set of strategies to allocate network space (lanes or zones) to autonomous vehicles (AVs) in partially automated dynamic networks. This dissertation aims to develop a set of methods to determine the appropriate AV managed space strategies. Managed space strategies...
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a heritable, neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by social impairments and restricted and repetitive behaviors (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Tick, Bolton, Happe, Rutter, & Rijsdijk, 2016), with a subset of first-degree relatives demonstrating a constellation of subclinical traits that are qualitatively similar to the defining features of...
The advent of metamaterials—hierarchical structures that manifest properties beyond those found in nature through geometry rather than material composition—inspired new possibilities and research in many fields. In mechanics, periodic metamaterials exhibit behaviors ranging from unprecedented compressibility to extreme stiffness. Numerous geometric classes of metamaterials with these properties have been discovered,...