Two-dimensional materials’ “all-surface” architecture presents a new paradigm for investigations into electron confinement effects and surface phenomena. However, synthesizing, characterizing, and ultimately engineering the properties of 2D materials represents a formidable challenge. This thesis presents several cases of isolating novel 2D materials via vapor-based syntheses. Vapor-based syntheses allow for reproducible...
Lithium ion batteries (LIBs) have been the most prominent electrochemical energy storage technology over the past decades and enabled the wireless evolution of portable electronic devices. Yet the expanded use of renewable but intermittent energy sources coupled with increasing demand for electric transportation vehicles put forward requirements to electrochemical energy...
Transcription by RNA polymerase II (Pol II) in metazoans is regulated in multiple steps, including preinitiation complex (PIC) formation, initiation, Pol II escape, productive elongation, cotranscriptional RNA processing, and termination. Genome-wide studies have demonstrated that the phenomenon of promoter-bound Pol II pausing is widespread, especially for genes that respond to...
Mucolipins are lysosomal cation channels, with high permeability to calcium ions, that are thought to regulate endolysosomal trafficking. While mucolipin 1 is expressed in all cells, mucolipin 3 is expressed in a small subset of cells (i.e. neonatal intestinal enterocytes, cochlear hair cells and marginal cells of stria vascularis). This...
The diverse reactivity patterns, unique structural features imparted by the cumulated double bonds, and possibility of axial chirality have garnered allenes considerable attention in organic synthesis. Numerous methods have been described in the literature to afford optically active allenes starting from chiral starting materials, yet catalytic and asymmetric methods to...
Dictating Manhood: Refiguring Masculinity in Haitian Literature of Dictatorship, 1968-2010 explores the literary representations of masculinity under dictatorship. Through the works of Marie Vieux Chauvet, René Depestre, Frankétienne, Georges Castera, Kettly Mars and Dany Laferrière, my dissertation examines the effects of dictatorship on Haitian masculinity and assesses whether extreme oppression...
Related article: McGrath, M.C., Gerber, A.S. Experimental evidence for a pure collaboration effect. Nat Hum Behav 3, 354–360 (2019) doi:10.1038/s41562-019-0530-9
The thesis contains all four chapters of my Ph.D. research on deep learning and text mining. The first chapter, "Temporal Topic Analysis with Endogenous and Exogenous Processes'', proposes a topic model which mines temporal economy-related documents with an exogenous economic indicator, and finds the relationship between document topics and the...
The discovery and tailoring of new useful organic molecules for applications such as medicine and materials science is highly driven by meaningful developments in chemical methodology, and some of the most impactful advances have invoked catalysis to increase efficiency and specificity. N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs) have continuously occupied a prominent space...