The goal of this study was to investigate the properties of the retinal ganglion cell receptive field at low light levels. There has been considerable interest in whether the surround of a ganglion cell receptive field disappears and the center expands in size under scotopic conditions. The previous data from...
Modeling and simulation at different scales were used to study mass transport, residence times and selective oxidation in nanostructured membranes. First, analytical equations of the possible mass transport mechanisms inside the pores were used to determine that diffusion dominates over convection under the conditions of interest for selective oxidation: 700...
The purpose of this dissertation study was to build on scholarly work in the area of critical mathematics by such scholars as Gutstein (2003) and Gutierrez (2002). Critical pedagogy is designed to foster political agency and critical consciousness in students (Freire, 1971). That is the aim of critical mathematics in...
The abundance and breadth of condition data generated by advanced inspection technologies have increased the frequency and accuracy of data collection, which is not exploited by the existing performance models. Moreover, simultaneity of deterioration and maintenance causes difficulty of estimating effectiveness of maintenance activities for existing performance models. To address...
The optical and magneto-optical properties of the ferromagnetic semiconductors, InMnAs and its alloy InMnAsP were investigated to determine the band structure and nature of the ferromagnetism in these materials. Alloys were grown by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy. Infrared absorption of InMnAs was investigated to determine the presence and properties of...
Experimental and numerical studies of lasing in multiple light scattering media with gain are presented in this thesis. Depending on the dielectric constant spatial distribution is random or periodic, two different kinds of lasers are discussed: the random laser and the photonic crystal laser. This thesis, therefore, is divided into...
Spectral elements are p-type element which can provide better accuracy
and faster convergence. However, applications of these elements make
conformation to discontinuities in the function or its derivative
difficult. The eXtended Finite Element Method (XFEM) recently
developed at Northwestern University can easily treat the arbitrarily
aligned discontinuities, i.e. independent of...
Two-year colleges are a critical site for the expansion of educational opportunity in the United States. They enroll nearly half of all postsecondary students and are a gateway to higher education for low-income, non-traditional, racial and ethnic minority, and first-generation college students. Degree completion rates in the two-year sector are...
Most women diagnosed with epithelial ovarian carcinoma (EOC) initially present with metastases, but little is known about the regulation of ovarian tumor cell dissemination by the tumor microenvironment. Because ovarian cancer cell dissemination is mostly limited to the peritoneal cavity and often results in the accumulation of malignant ascites, the...
Arsenic trioxide (As<sub>2</sub>0<sub>3</sub>) is an arsenic-derivative that exhibits potent growth inhibitory effects against malignant cells. The remarkable antitumor effects of As<sub>2</sub>0<sub>3</sub> in vitro and in vivo have prompted the development of various clinical trials that established its activity in acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL). As<sub>2</sub>0<sub>3</sub> is part of the standard treatment...