This dissertation asks how a dynamic of vengeance involving the United States and anti-imperialist political organizations in the Middle East emerged and persisted between the 1967 Middle East war and the battle of Tora Bora in Afghanistan in December 2001. It tracks the construction of channels—ideological, institutional, emotional, and personal—through...
Most lubricants contain a series of additives that reduce friction and wear, and protect contacting surfaces. The design of these additives must be modernized to meet the challenges involved with high operating temperatures, extreme environmental conditions, and increasingly stringent environmental regulations. This research demonstrates three novel lubricant additive strategies that...
The Pseudomonas aeruginosa type III secretion system delivers effector proteins directly into target cells, allowing the bacterium to modulate host cell functions. ExoU is the most cytotoxic of the known effector proteins and has been associated with more severe infections in humans. Previous studies have shown that ExoU is a...
Photovoltaic technology can help meet the exploding world energy demand in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way. Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) are especially attractive because they can be constructed with low-cost organic content and are amenable to high-throughput large-scale fabrication techniques. Synthetic modification of organic semiconductors has paved way for the...
In the near future, self-driving or driverless vehicles will operate without human control, enabling passengers to use their time in new ways. This opens up avenues for designing new interactions and experiences for individuals or groups traveling in an automobile. For that scenario, automobile manufacturers propose developing bigger and better...
Some five years ago, during the first year of my assistantship at the Music Academy in Katowice, I required students to analyse some of Penderecki's early, so-called "sonoristic" pieces. The outcome of that assignment proved unsatisfactory, however, because the students tended to describe Penderecki's pieces as chaotic assemblages of sound...
The promise of next-generation electronics, which combines features such as mechanical flexibility, optical transparency, and relatively low-cost, has stimulated tremendous research efforts during the past few years. As perhaps the most fundamental component of an electronic circuit, the design and optimization of the thin film transistor (TFT) is of great...
In vivo, substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc) dopaminergic neurons exhibit three spiking patterns – irregular, regular, and bursting. These distinct modes of activity are thought to underlie the different roles that dopamine (DA) plays in target structures within the basal ganglia. In particular, burst spiking in SNc DA neurons is...
In his Nobel lecture Herbert Kroemer famously stated that “The interface is the device”. While he made this statement in the context of semiconducting heterostructures, it has proven to be just as relevant for more complex materials, such as the transition metal oxides. In particular, the 2-D conducting gas that...