Living organisms grow precisely controlled assemblies of inorganic crystals using organic substrates. This observation has inspired the strategy of using synthetic organic templates for the growth of tailored inorganic thin films. It has been previously shown that monomolecular organic layers floating on supersaturated aqueous subphases (Langmuir monolayers) select the structure...
The nervous system develops through the highly regulated process of proliferation and differentiation of neural stem cells. Two major regulatory pathways that maintain neural stem cells in a proliferative state or promote their differentiation are the Notch and BMP signaling pathways, respectively. In this dissertation, we demonstrate that HeyL, a...
In this thesis, we study routing and resource allocation problems which have probabilistic objective functions. This class of problems has received limited attention in literature despite its promising applications. A probabilistic objective function is capable of incorporating business targets into the problem modeling and representing the risk attitude of a...
Small molecule organic materials based on perylene- and naphthalene- diimide are synthesized and characterized for use as semiconductor thin films in organic field-effect transistors. The orbital energetics of the materials are investigated via electrochemical, spectroscopic, and computational techniques. The thin film solids are characterized by x-ray diffraction techniques and surface...
One of the current goals in the biomaterials research is to develop implants with improved osteoconductivity and long-term stability. Thanks to its chemical similarity to the mineral phase of natural bone, hydroxyapatite (HA) has been extensively studied and clinically tested as a coating on metallic substrates, to obtain bioactive implants...
Age-related maculopathy (ARM) is a leading cause of legal blindness in the elderly in the world. Currently, the physiological and ultrastructural bases for the development of ARM remain unclear. Many studies have proposed that the morphological changes, particularly the accumulations of lipids with aging, in Bruch's membrane - an extracellular...
Direct dynamics quasiclassical trajectory (QCT) calculations are performed to study the dynamics of model atom + polyatom reactions. In the first part of this thesis, we examine adiabatic dynamics of H/O reaction with simple alkanes, CD4 and C2H6. Overall good agreement with state-of-the-art experiments shows that the molecular motion is...
Development of the central nervous system requires the coordinated interplay of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. I examined the actions of an extrinsic factor, TWEAK, and an intrinsic factor, Iroquois1 (Irx1) on neural progenitor cell behavior. Embryonic day 12 (E12) and post-natal day 1 (PN1) neural progenitor cells both express Fn14,...
Gradient copolymers are novel materials that possess a gradual variation in composition along the chain, thereby forming an intermediate structure between random and block copolymers. As such, they are a model system to investigate the effect of molecular structure on fundamental properties of copolymers and may be useful in many...
Gradient copolymers are novel materials that possess a gradual variation in composition along the chain, thereby forming an intermediate structure between random and block copolymers. As such, they are a model system to investigate the effect of molecular structure on fundamental properties of copolymers and may be useful in many...