In fish, caudally propagating waves of neural activity produce muscle bending moments. These moments, coupled with forces due to the body's elastic properties and forces due to fluid-body interactions, determine the deformation kinematics for swimming. Fully resolved simulations of neurally-activated swimming can be used to decode activation patterns underlying observed...
Bacterial biofilms are aggregates of cells that adhere to nearly any solid-fluid interface. While many have harmful effects, such as industrial damage and nosocomial infections, certain biofilm species are now generating renewable energy as the fundamental components of Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs). In an MFC, bacteria consume organic waste and,...
This dissertation seeks to make sense of the recurring anachronism of aristocracy within early twentieth-century French culture, especially in literature and film. Most studies present the aristocrat as simply one among many examples of the nostalgia, reaction and fascination with the archaic that constituted an important intellectual and artistic tendency...
Victorian novels’ characteristic preoccupation with marriage and inheritance has led scholars to view the form as socially conservative in the mid-nineteenth century. Yet contemporary commentators feared what young women might conceive as a result of reading. The key to this dilemma, I argue, is the usual consequence of nineteenth-century marriage...
This dissertation argues that by examining the networks and advocacy of Americans interested in Lebanon and Lebanese with ties to the U.S., scholars can better understand how relationships cultivated away from the spotlight of policymaker attention have both guided and revealed the limitations of U.S. empire. Activists, both Lebanese and...
“Quartering the Wind” explores the unorthodox, unstable, and seditious political values that undermined early modern English arguments for what is “natural” in human governance. I examine texts that expose a politically intricate natural world that serves no single model of orthodox politics. While ecocritical treatments of political analogies drawn from...
Thin film oxidation is investigated using two modeling techniques in the interest of better understanding the roles of space charge and non-equilibrium effects.
An electrochemical phase-field model of an oxide-metal interface is formulated in one dimension and studied at equilibrium and during growth. An analogous sharp interface model is developed...
Algorithmic trading (AT) has grown dramatically in recent years and now makes up over half of all trades and orders in the market. I investigate whether and how AT affects voluntary disclosure by managers. I hypothesize that AT’s differential ability to process information and its speed of trading affects how...
Our visual system organizes lines, shapes, and colors into groups, objects, and scenes. This dissertation explores how these higher-level organizations arise, focusing on the contribution of feature-based attention, our ability to selectively enhance a color, shape, or orientation across our visual field. I will present evidence that feature-based attention enables...
Humans have a remarkable ability to walk on a variety of surfaces. Compliant, uneven, or even slippery surfaces present little challenge to most people, yet are hazardous to individuals with locomotor impairments and even to bipedal robotic systems designed to mimic what we understand about human locomotion. Our ability to...