Nanomaterials present an exciting landscape of innovation at length scales below 100 nm, wherein controllable synthesis and materials metrology have led to tunable structure-property relationships and next-generation products. The disruptive field of nanotechnology is poised to capitalize upon the exotic chemistry and physics of these nanomaterials to enable more efficient...
In Chapter 1, I analyze optimal capital structure using a model in which firms issue securities in order to (1) finance investments in operations and (2) recapitalize the firm. In this trade-off model, firms balance the tax benefits of debt against the costs of financial distress. Key to the analysis,...
As the technology enabling touch-sense rendering of virtual textures grows in efficacy and prevalence, so too grows the need for a standardized means of storing, transferring, and reconstituting textural signals. Furthermore, to achieve the ultra-low-latency requirements of the next generation of global communications networks, this digital texture representation must be...
In this essay I examine George Aperghis’ process-based compositional thought in the score and performance practice of Retrouvailles, with a focus on the non-hierarchical and simultaneous use of interdisciplinary elements. I demonstrate how Aperghis sets up the complex dramaturgy of superimposed, suggestive narratives in this work as a case-study of...
The purpose of this thesis is to study the empirical measure of the t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding algorithm (t-SNE) when the input is given by n independent, identically distributed inputs.We show that this sequence of measures converges to an equilibrium measure, which can be described as the solution of a...
Relative to individual level exposures (such as childhood trauma, life events, and bullying exposure), contextual or systems level environmental factors have received relatively less attention in the psychology literature. While landmark epidemiological and sociological studies have uncovered key insights with regards to systems, this knowledge has not often been translated...
This dissertation is an in-depth exploration of Clarke Distributions (for 10), an original musical composition based on the use of text to establish interrelational listening and performance patterns between performers, in place of any fixed musical material. Inspired by research into improvisation, cognition, aesthetics, and linguistics, these patterns manifest as...
The societies of the former Yugoslavia are only a quarter-century removed from extensive warfare, yet collectively represent one of the fastest-growing tourism destinations in the world. This dissertation employs a global and relational lens to examine how contested narratives of recent conflict history are marketed, performed, and narrativized in settings...
This thesis explores the potential of two-dimensional (2D) or van der Waals (vdW) materials for printed optoelectronic devices. The research focuses on the development of processing, imaging, and modeling of materials and thin-film devices to optimize performance and introduce novel properties. A gate-dependent resistor network model is presented that establishes...
Much of our understanding of human becoming and the process by which possible futures are developed has been based on narrow samples of human experience, which are usually more privileged and provide a narrow view of variability in human life and development. The developmental and educational pathways of minoritized young...
This dissertation introduces several novel computational imaging techniques that capture and analyze the 3D surface shapes and internal layered materials. The research proposes user-friendly and non-invasive imaging systems, constructed using only commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components, which provide accurate measurement of 3D information that was previously inaccessible. The dissertation focuses on...
Soft materials are inherently fluxional, with morphologies and behaviors that are dictated by their solvation state. Thus, many organic systems cannot be reliably imaged by static dry state or cryogenic-transmission electron microscopy (TEM). This motivated us to pursue liquid cell (LC) TEM method development to study our own materials and...
CD95/Fas ligand (CD95L) is a well characterized activator of extrinsic apoptosis. CD95L protein binds to its cognate receptor, CD95/Fas/APO-1, inducing apoptotic signaling in sensitive cells. However, expression of CD95L is toxic even in the absence of CD95. We previously reported that the CD95L open reading frame (ORF) is enriched for...
Involuntary motor activities such as spasms arise from hyperreflexia in about 70% of individuals with spinal cord injuries (SCI). Despite this prevalence and the negative impact on health and safety, it is unclear what determines the severity of the spasms that develop. This study investigated the impact of injury severity...
Uranium is a unique, multifaceted element that possesses rich chemistry and promise for challenging reactions. Pressing demands within nuclear stockpile stewardship and the nuclear energy sector call for development of this relatively understudied element. Uranium metal–organic frameworks (U-MOFs), a class of nanoscale hybrid materials, harness the exceptional attributes of uranium...
In the 1960s, the International Theatre Institute (ITI), the organization sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) with a mission to represents the world’s theaters, was faced with a crisis of representation. After twenty years of existence, the institution had not succeeded in substantially expanding beyond...
Monetary Policy plays a crucial role in modern economies by supporting price, financial and economic stability. Its efficacy, however, exhibits variation both over time and across space leading to partially unpredictable and inconsistent outcomes. This thesis shows that the variation in the efficacy of monetary policy crucially relates to the...
The goal of this thesis is to prove that topological restriction homology, TR, is locally even in the quasi-syntomic topology in characteristic p. This local evenness was already known for the other main trace theories, but is more subtle for TR.
We consider data-driven approaches for universal texture modeling via generative adversarial networks and inversion methods. We investigate the properties of the learned representation spaces and demonstrate that a strong link between texture analysis and synthesis is the key to successful texture modeling. First, we visit the problem of texture synthesis...
Previous studies have documented a systematic discrepancy between probabilistic seismic hazard maps and historical records of shaking (Stein et al., 2015; Brooks et al., 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019; Salditch et al., 2020; Salditch, 2021). In almost every case, shaking predicted by the hazard map is higher than that historically observed....
This dissertation includes the score and companion essay to the musical work, Untitled (March). In the composition, I endeavor to create a listening situation offering a mutually negotiated environment of quietude that challenges a listener's preconceptions of intentionality and perception by blurring the boundaries between instrumental performance, field recordings, and the...
Due to their widespread applicability, graphs and networks appear in various contexts. The increasing scale of graphs encountered in the real-world requires the developmentof efficient algorithms that run reasonably fast and produce close to optimal solutions.
The main focus of this thesis is the development of fast graph algorithms for...
Machine learning-based techniques have shown great promises in perception, prediction, planning, and general decision-making for improving task performance of autonomous driving. Connectivity technology has also presented great potentials in improving the safety and efficiency of transportation systems by providing information beyond the perception and prediction capabilities of individual vehicles. However,...
Our sense of smell, or olfaction, is one of our most evolutionarily ancient senses. In vertebrates, olfaction plays a crucial role in many functions, such as detecting and evaluating food, avoiding predators, regulating appetite, spatial navigation, and selecting mating partners. In addition, the olfactory system is highly dynamic and exhibits...
Findings in both humans and animal models have associated the hippocampal theta oscillation with hippocampal memory function. In animal models, previous research supports that the theta oscillation contributes to memory via phase-dependent changes in hippocampal network connectivity, wherein memory encoding versus retrieval are optimized at different phases of the theta...
This essay investigates the question under which conditions ASMR is suitable for the concert space. What can be done to ensure that those sensitive to ASMR experience the desired effect? The text compares the sounds used to induce the physiological response called ASMR to those of “Musique Concrète (Instrumentale)” by...
Preschool television has historically not been representative of the world young childrenlive in. Although progress is being made, “representation matters” is still a phrase that rings true to this day. This dissertation focused on representation within STEM television shows because STEM education involves learning important skills such as problem solving...
Biologically active small molecules remain the foundation for the medical management of human disease. Their impacts on human health, longevity, culture, and society are difficultly overstated. In large part, medicines derived from organic compounds are the result of the tireless efforts of chemical practitioners––both past and present––who have dedicated much...
Shale gas is a critical energy resource that is comprised primarily of light gases that are expensive to transport. Because these gases are geographically spread-out and there is insufficient capacity to transport them to centralized processing facilities, they must often be flared, leading to great sources of resource waste and...
Literature screening is the process of identifying all relevant records from a pool of candidate paper records in systematic review, meta-analysis, and other research synthesis tasks. This process is time consuming, expensive, and prone to human error. Screening prioritization methods attempt to help reviewers identify most relevant records while only...
Multiple facets of the natural trajectory of glioma remain poorly understood, which results in a universally poor prognosis for patients with glioma. Many patients with glioma experience tumor-associated epilepsy (TAE) throughout their disease course, but the mechanism by which TAE occurs, who is at continued risk for TAE, and whether...
Single-use plastic waste pollution will cause significant harm to the environment if left unaddressed. One possible mitigation strategy is to develop processes, e.g. catalytic hydrogenolysis, that can convert (i.e. upcycle) waste plastics into value-added products capable of participating in a circular economy. Platinum (Pt) catalysts on strontium titanate nanocuboid supports...
Aging is the greatest known risk factor for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD); however, the molecular mechanisms underlying aging and how it can initiate and or exacerbate AD, is still unknown. Epigenetic regulation has been widely accepted to play an essential role in aging or AD-related processes; however, whether dysregulations of histone...
Thermoelectric devices convert between temperature gradients and electricity, implying numerous applications, such as powering exploratory space vehicles, industrial waste-heat recovery, and solid- state refrigeration. Thermoelectric devices consist of doped p-type and n-type semiconductor legs, and the overall device efficiency depends on the transport properties of these semiconductor materials. High-performing thermoelectric...
Through analysis of visual and literary texts, “Relating Sideways: Visual Culture and Women’s Bonds, 1970-2020” constructs a historical narrative that challenges the assumption that women’s lives and relationships naturally bend toward romance and procreation, a normative lifespan that follows the function capitalism has needed women to perform in consumption and...
The first chapter of this dissertation, coauthored with Martin Eichenbaum and Riccardo Bianchi-Vimercati, addresses the question: how sensitive is the power of fiscal policy at the ZLB to the assumption of rational expectations? We do so through the lens of a standard NK model in which people are level-k thinkers....
In recent decades, metal additive manufacturing has seen rapid advancements, offering promising applications across various industries. However, addressing existing challenges in metal AM, such as process stability, defect avoidance, and quality control, is essential for fully exploiting its potential in fabricating parts with a desired geometry, as well as tailored...
This dissertation consists of three essays in microeconomic theory. In the first two chapters, I study a class of partnerships where partners can exit and continue to free-ride on the remaining partners' efforts. The crucial force to deter players from strategic exiting is the ripple effect that it may trigger...
The field of materials discovery is undergoing an unprecedented transition from laboratory tocomputer. Behind this transition is the new ability to accurately compute material properties, especially
energetic stability, from first principles with density functional theory (DFT). However,
DFT remains computationally expensive, and DFT-based materials discovery is intractable, especially
in high...
This dissertation examines how nineteenth century German literature constructed and experimented with an entangled concept of “the environment” based not in (Romantic) philosophical and literary conceptions of nature, but in the theory and science of color perception. As the visual point of interaction between an observer and their surrounding world,...
In this thesis, we consider the spherical spin glass models at zero temperature. We first determine the structureof the Parisi measure at zero temperature for the spherical p+s spin glass model. We then
consider the spherical mixed p-spin model and show that for the spherical spin models with
n components,...
The reprogramming of somatic cells to a spontaneously contracting cardiomyocyte-like state using defined transcription factors has proven successful in mouse fibroblasts. However, this process has been less successful in human cells, thus limiting the potential clinical applicability of this technology in regenerative medicine. We hypothesized that this issue is due...
Human skin oils are significant scavengers of atmospheric oxidants in occupied indoor environments. Many techniques used to study gas-phase transformations of surface films indoors have been limited to off-line bulk analysis, although more surface-selective methodologies are emerging. Here, we present a multi-prong analytical approach to characterizing skin oil ozonolysis. Skin...
The Operating System (OS) kernel is a key component of modern computing infrastructure, yet it is prone to numerous vulnerabilities, many of which cause memory corruptions that can be exploited by attackers to perform malicious activities. While various techniques have been introduced to secure the Linux kernel, it still constantly...
In the first two decades of the twenty-first century, we have witnessed a surge of public interest in and discussion around racial reckoning. Universities in the United States and across the globe are grappling with their historical associations with transatlantic and chattel slavery. This dissertation takes up the question of...
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are porous, crystalline materials synthesized by combining metal nodes and organic linkers through self-assembly. The diverse range of building blocks available allows for extensive tunability of MOFs, enabling the optimization of these materials for various applications, such as gas storage, separations, and catalysis. This study aimed to...
Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common aggressive primary malignant brain tumorin adults with a median age of onset of 65 years of age. Although advanced age is often associated with worse GBM patient survival, the predominant source(s) of maladaptive aging
effects remains to be established. Here we studied intra-tumoral and...
Metal–Organic Frameworks (MOFs) is a class of material comprising organic linkers and inorganic, metal-ion-containing nodes, with diverse functionalities and wide-range of applications. Because of their porous nature and functional nodes and linkers, they are competent candidates for gas storage, separation, catalysis, and so on. Most MOFs, however, are intrinsically insulating,...
In recent years, we have seen the embryo of Industry 4.0 which has been promoting manufacturing processes towards the future with better efficiency, higher accuracy and better reliability. However, manufacturing precision has been restricted by the precision of metrology and material characterization. In other words, one can only manufacture parts...
Stairs and curbs often present as an exhausting environmental barrier for individuals with bilateral cerebral palsy (CP) due to their lower limb motor impairments. Indeed, performance in stair-climbing in this population has a higher correlation with disruption of mobility than walking. Community members affected by CP consider impaired mobility a...
Anthropologists engaging with biopolitical theory have commonly assumed that biomedicine is a tool for enacting state-based policies to manage population health. Recent insights in medical anthropology have troubled this assumption, calling into question the role of physicians as “handmaidens” of state-based health policy. I use my position as a physician-anthropologist...
The role of providing care for a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease can expose friends and family caregivers to significant stress over an extended period of time, resulting in a host of negative outcomes like increased depression and anxiety, and diminished quality of life. However, previous studies have found that...
This thesis document is comprised of three research projects. The first investigates the active vibrational modes involved in twisted intramolecular charge transfer in a Julolidine-BODIPY dyad using two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy along with DFT calculations. We identified two types of vibrations, compression and torsional motion, as playing an important role in...
Renewable energy technology, more so than ever before, is critical to the survival of humanity. For decades, concentrated efforts into designing and developing such novel devices resulted in the innovation of solar-driven photovoltaics that were competitive with nonrenewable alternatives. This thesis explores the dynamic behavior of alternative material candidates that...
The work presented in this thesis is to describe the fabrication of the nano-composites of carbonaceous materials (e.g. graphene oxide) and metal oxides (e.g. Titanium dioxide TiO2) for two specific applications in the field of public health protection: 1.) removal of micropollutants (MPs) in the aqueous environment; 2.) antimicrobial coating.The...
The need for complex and sophisticated materials continues to grow as society becomes more advanced. For many chemists, the design of these materials begins by looking towards model molecular systems for the identification of desirable properties and functions. As such, restricting oneself to C, H, N, O, and the other...
Each neuron in the primary motor cortex (M1) is like a musician in an orchestra, contributing to a larger harmony under the constraint of a “neural manifold”—a geometric score describing the correlated signals produced by the neural musicians that drive movement. Despite the widespread recognition of the importance of M1...
Interpenetrating polymer networks (IPNs) are multicomponent materials that enhance the compatibility of otherwise immiscible polymers by trapping the microstructure in a non-equilibrium state. By combining polymers with vastly different moduli, IPNs effectively disperse rigid polymers within a soft matrix, resulting in a reinforced elastomer. This approach significantly increases the modulus...
Large scale adoption of sustainable technologies for energy productionand storage can be greatly facilitated by scientific advances impacting efficiency, cost and availability. The study of materials is instrumental in both upgrading the performance of existing technologies and enabling the development of new ones, and ab-initio methods and machine learning represent...
Chronic stress is a significant risk factor for the development of numerous psychiatric disorders, including major depressive disorder (MDD). Individuals with MDD exhibit impairments in reward processing and decreased motivation to engage in previously-rewarding activities. Importantly, there is a large sex disparity in MDD diagnosis, such that it affects nearly...
The rise in children’s media use (Rideout & Robb, 2020) and the prioritization of STEM learning (Fayer et al., 2017) has led to the development of new STEM-related apps, TV shows, and other media for young children. One topic in this area gaining popularity is computational thinking (CT). Researchers refer...
A proliferation of new media platforms have upended the traditional roles that journalists have played in society, placing their work into content streams that are populated by creators who mimic the surface features of their work but not their methods. As a result, journalists’ practices and news media that they...
In this dissertation, we aim to develop a theoretical understanding of foundation models and reinforcement learning. We delve into a comprehensive analysis of specific aspects within these domains. The focal points of our study are as follows: • Generative Adversarial Imitation Learning (GAIL) with Neural Networks: GAIL is poised to...
Rivers and streams play a critical role in connecting major global carbon pools – land, oceans, and atmosphere. The longitudinal flow in rivers and streams allows for the integration and transport of fluvial particulate organic carbon (POC) from various sources and its continual transformation. A continuum-oriented perspective suggests longitudinal variations...
Kaposi’ sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) causes primary effusion lymphoma (PEL). PEL cell lines require expression of the cellular FLICE inhibitory protein (cFLIP) for survival, although KSHV encodes a viral homolog of this protein (vFLIP). Cellular and viral FLIP proteins have several functions, including, most importantly, the inhibition of pro-apoptotic caspase 8...
The relationship between the structure and function of proteins is a fundamental problem in biology with implications for the future of biotechnology and global health. For example, changes to the structure of a coronavirus spike protein led to a global pandemic where our best defenses were vaccines that could only...
Scholarly inquiry has yielded a wealth of evidence in support of narrative-based strategies for persuasion, and yet support for this approach is less consistent in relation to contentious or controversial issues. To better understand why this might be the case, the first part of this dissertation reports a theoretically-guided content...
Prisoner reentry has become an increasingly popular topic of research in the past few decades due to the phenomenon of mass return as a result of the era of mass incarceration. While research has been done on the experiences of the returning population before mass incarceration, few contemporary researchers have...
Ankle sprains are the most common musculoskeletal injury. After an ankle sprain, about 40% of individuals develop Chronic Ankle Instability (CAI), resulting in recurrent sprains, the ankle giving way, or feelings of instability. Most sprains occur due to excess inversion of the ankle. Frontal-plane ankle stiffness quantifies the ankle’s ability...
“National Acts: Performance, Commemoration, and the Construction of American Public Memory” explores how sites of public commemoration created during and after the American Civil War crafted conceptions of American public memory and identities through performative processes. This dissertation looks at three commemorative efforts: the Freedmen’s Memorial Monument to Abraham Lincoln,...
Dental enamel is a complex bio-composite with compositional and structural features across a wide range of length scales. Defects in these features can compromise enamel’s ability to protect the tooth, resulting in adverse health outcomes. Acquired defects like tooth decay are familiar to most people and are the subject of...
Many processes in nature and human-made settings rely on the unique properties of charged metal oxide:aqueous interfaces. Despite their ubiquity, these buried interfaces are challenging to study, since any analytical technique aiming to overcome the relatively small number density of interfacial versus bulk species must be highly sensitive and surface-selective....
Caves are accessible windows into the shallow subsurface, serving as transitional ecosystems between the photosynthesis-dependent surface and the deeper subsurface. Without a source of solar energy to ultimately power carbon (C) fixation (photolithoautotrophy), cave ecosystems are either reliant on surface-derived nutrients, recovering reducing power from the microbial oxidation of redox-sensitive...
Global dementia diagnoses are steeply increasing. While advances in neuroimaging, neuropathology, and genetics research have improved our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases causing dementia, precise antemortem diagnosis, as well as sensitive and specific biomarkers that can facilitate a differential diagnosis and aid in participant recruitment in clinical trials, remains elusive. The...
This dissertation explores critiques of mass education alongside the rise of the research university as they appear in the early writings of Friedrich Nietzsche and Walter Benjamin. More specifically, it traces the development of a theory of (un)learning that inserts distance into the pedagogical relation to produce a discretized educational...
Cancer is a complex and heterogeneous disease characterized by aberrant gene regulation. Gene regulation is fundamentally orchestrated by the 3D genome organization which involves chromatin looping, compartmentalization, and the formation of topologically associating domains (TADs). Structural variations (SVs), such as genomic rearrangements, deletions, inversions, and duplications, are commonly observed in...
This dissertation explores how dominant U.S. constructions of race, class, and gender are embedded into and inscribed onto artificially intelligent virtual assistants and the labors they perform. I examine virtual assistants like Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Microsoft’s Cortana, interrogating their complex relationship to humanness, the tasks they are programmed...
This thesis explores how beyond-the-Standard-Model physics interactions could lead to the detection of neutrino decay with lifetimes that are orders of magnitude smaller than a second. I mainly focused on right-handed neutrino fields, new heavy states, and non-zero daughter neutrino masses, assuming the neutrinos are Dirac fermions. An extensive description...
Clustering is a fundamental task in unsupervised learning, which aims to partition the data set into several clusters. It is widely used for data mining, image segmentation, and natural language processing. One of the most popular clustering methods is centroid-based clustering, including k-medians and k-means clustering. k-medians and k-means clustering...
This dissertation focuses on the study of the superionic state in multicomponent systems, where the smaller component exhibits delocalization and mobility while still maintaining system compactness through component attractions. Superionic behavior is widely observed in various systems and plays a crucial role in ceramic superionic conductors, which offer high ion...
One of the greatest challenges in heterogeneous catalysis is the rational design and development of new catalytic systems, due to synthetic limitations in the design of solid catalysts and inhomogeneity of chemical sites at solid surfaces. This obfuscates understanding of catalyst behavior and slows improvements of processes. One approach to...
Clean water supplies are required for industry and general life. However, water shortages dueto pollution and human activity are increasingly common, and new, more efficient, materials need
to be made to increase clean water supplies. To do this, fundamental information on the interaction
of water with ions at the atomic...
The functions of lubricants in moving interfaces are extensive; lubricants minimize friction, transfer heat, clean the rubbing surfaces, extract debris, and diminish wear. Rather than using separate lubricants for each of the functions, it is more desirable to make one lubricant serve multiple purposes, or a muti-functional lubricant. The goals...
Morality has been viewed as a core aspect of the self and even a basic psychological need. Strategies for regulating threats to moral self-views may therefore be distinct from regulating threats to other self-aspects. Consistent with research on the regulation of basic psychological needs, I hypothesized that threats to the...
The continuing increase in atmospheric CO2 to concentrations exceeding 400 ppm has attracted considerable attention from both scientists and policymakers. Industrial fossil fuel consumption generates a significant amount of CO2 emissions, and in particular, energy-intensive molecular separations that require thermal processes, such as distillation, drying, or evaporation, are responsible for...
Performing complex reasoning has been a long-standing challenge in artificial intelligence (AI).This thesis describes a class of AI systems designed to reason, extract knowledge, and answer
questions on various domains such as process understanding, elementary science, and math word
problems. Our approach differs from traditional logical reasoning systems since we...
Lignin is the largest store of renewable aromatic carbon. Due to its refractory nature, however, its chemical potential is not fully realized, rather, most lignin is treated as a waste, burned for low-value energy. Here, we propose a biorefinery where the treatment of wastewater by a microbial electrolysis cell (MEC)...
In shared workspaces users have real-time access to others’ actions, allowing greater access to potentially informative cues. However, there has been little exploration about what impact the ability to view each other’s work in real time has on group members’ perception of both each other and their understanding of the...
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the status quo of the telemobility landscape in the United States, forcing millions of Americans into lock down, significantly changing the way we work, travel, and spend our time and money for an extended period of time. After several months of adaptation, adoption, learning, and unlearning,...
Assistive robots have the potential to support motor recovery after an injury as well as to alleviate the burden of physical tasks for both impaired and able-bodied individuals. Over the last few decades assistive robots have become increasingly more capable. Many can now provide task-specific assistance and can be safe...
Directional freeze-casting is a porous materials fabrication technique that is used to create materials with complex, three-dimensional pore structures. Particle suspensions are solidified under a thermal gradient, promoting anisotropic growth of dendrites and incorporation of particles within interdendritic space. A fully-solidified directional freeze-cast structure is composed of dendrites that are...
This thesis investigates Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s undermining of soteriological poetics in his comedy Der Schwierige (“The Difficult Man”), with a focus on the complex interplay between meta-language (e.g., stage directions) and dramatic dialogue, normative and contingent speech (i.e., ‘ironic speech’). By challenging what I term the “soteriological agenda” of comedy...
This dissertation proves several results for first passage percolation on graphs of polynomial growth.The class of limit shapes for first passage percolation with stationary weights on Cayley
graphs of virtually nilpotent groups is characterized.
Then strict monotonicity theorems for independent first passage percolation on graphs of
polynomial growth and quasi-trees...
Herein, we present an overview of our studies of the morphology, dynamics, and formation of heterogeneous soft matter systems via the emerging technique of liquid phase transmission electron microscopy (LPTEM). This particular subset of materials, more commonly referred to as emulsions, is tremendously commercially and biologically relevant, encompassing applications in...
Conversation is an important part of human life. Given globalization and the numerous languages around the world, it is increasingly likely that we will be communicating with others speaking in their second language (L2) rather than their first language (L1). In these situations, communication may require more effort. However, people...
Transnational adoption from Asia to the U.S. was institutionalized in the 1950s, when the Korean War left an estimated 100,000 Korean children orphaned or displaced. At the time, the practice was situated as a form of emergency rescue, an act of win-win humanitarianism in which average Americans could take part...
Transcription plays a pivotal role in the transfer of genetic information within living organisms. It serves as the initial step in gene expression, allowing cells to convert the instructions encoded in their DNA into functional molecules. Eukaryotic transcription initiation is a complex and dynamic process that requires joint efforts from...
Gastrointestinal (GI) colonization by Klebsiella pneumoniae is a risk factor for subsequent infection as well as transmission to other patients. Additionally, colonization is achieved by many strain types that exhibit high diversity in genetic content. However, how K. pneumoniae achieves colonization and whether the genetic factors it uses differ by...
Mission-critical systems are those imperative systems whose failures can result in catastrophic consequences. Traditional techniques, such as manual investigation and testing, cannot ensure the absence of errors and security vulnerabilities within these systems. This dissertation leverages formal methods to comprehensively examine several mission-critical systems and their essential components. For each...