There is no group of materials as diverse, complex, and ubiquitous as polymers. From plastic bags, to rubber tires, electronics, food packaging, water filtration and even aerospace applications, the penetration of polymer materials into all aspects of life make them very important materials throughout all engineering fields. However, this breadth...
Protein-protein interactions are ubiquitous in living systems, and mediate important cellular processes from decision making to immunity against pathogens. Furthermore, protein-protein interactions are key to many protein therapeutics, pathogen diagnostics, and numerous synthetic biology applications. As a result, there has been significant effort to develop methods to express potential protein...
Desmosomal cadherins are a recent evolutionary innovation that make up the adhesive core of highly specialized intercellular junctions called desmosomes. Desmosomal cadherins, desmogleins and desmocollins, are related to the classical cadherins but their cytoplasmic domains are tailored for anchoring intermediate filaments instead of actin to sites of cell-cell adhesion. The...
This dissertation contains three chapters. In Chapter 1, I study the effects of bank leverage ratio restrictions in a general equilibrium model of the macroeconomy where lenders can anticipate bank runs. This framework allows the analysis of the tradeoffs associated with bank capital requirements - while unlimited leverage allows capital...
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...
Low-dimensional materials have emerged as a promising platform for ultrathin electronic and optoelectronic devices. The span of electronic properties covers the spectrum from metallic through small and medium bandgap semiconductors to large bandgap insulators, providing all the necessary components to fabricate a variety of devices. Compared to bulk-semiconductor based devices,...
Cyber-physical systems (CPS), as a multidisciplinary area, have been widely adopted in our daily life and attract experts from various fields. CPS aims to achieve real-time and resilient connection with physical world through integration of computation, communication and control technologies. Many CPS systems, such as automotive, avionics, and industrial system,...
Employees’ social class backgrounds remain a critical but often overlooked source of inequality in white-collar workplaces: employees from working-class backgrounds are less likely to be hired, less likely to advance to leadership positions, and earn less on average than their counterparts from middle- and upper-class backgrounds, even with the same...
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,...
Myoelectric pattern recognition-based upper limb prostheses measure electromyographic (EMG) signals from the residual limb and learn to identify muscle activity patterns that correspond to intended gestures. To train an accurate pattern recognition controller, it is essential that the training signals typify signals measured in real-world scenarios. When these conditions are...
Individual responses are an important determinant of public policy effectiveness. Development policies often try to remove barriers that limit the ability to make the preferred choices, hoping that this will lead to prosperity at the individual and aggregate levels. However, removing some, but not all, barriers can lead to undesirable...
Massive amounts of data with a large number of predictors routinely arrive in data systems as a result of recent developments in data collection technology. In this data-intensive world, predictive models are more important than ever to extract information and make decisions, and are widely applied in many different fields....
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...
This dissertation is about people living with the ruins of an old city. It demonstrates that ruined cities can provide sources of cultural identity and community life, conditions that contribute to social revitalization in times of crisis. The case study for this dissertation examines the ancient Maya city of Ake,...
Conventional cross-linked polymers are widely used owing to their outstanding stability and performance. However, permanent cross-links in these polymer networks prevent them from being recycled or reprocessed at the end of life, leading to major sustainability and economic losses. The recycling issue associated with polyurethane (PU) thermoset wastes exemplifies such...
This dissertation centers gay and lesbian activists, their lawyers, and public interest litigation organizations in a genealogical understanding of the evolution of human rights law in the LGBTIQ+ issue space. I ask why sexual minorities turned to the courts in pursuit of the decriminalization of homosexual sex. Empirically, I examine...
Etching flourished as a printmaking medium in Paris during the Second Empire and early Third Republic, the precise timeframe of the city’s drastic transformation due to the state-authorized phase of urban renewal implemented under the reign of Napoléon III by his prefect of the Seine, Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann. This study...
In this document, I demonstrate that: 1) Linear basis functions cannot outperform nonlinear ones to represent hand kinematics 2) Nonlinear autoencoders outperform PCA on the dimensionality reduction of hand kinematics, 3) Nonlinear autoencoders outperform PCA in human gait representation and recurrent nonlinear autoencoders can seamlessly express the temporal dynamics, 4)...
We address the problem of efficient maintenance of the answer to a new type of query: Continuous Maximizing Range-Sum (Co-MaxRS) for moving objects trajectories. The traditional static/spatial MaxRS problem finds a location for placing the centroid of a given (axes-parallel) rectangle $R$ so that the sum of the weights of...
In three empirical chapters, this dissertation examines the field of sustainability over time, specifically uncovering the processes by which contentious interactions between movements and organizations can shift to the development of shared meaning and the creation of new organizational positions. The dissertation utilizes the analyses strategies of text analysis, field...