The highly flexible nature of 2D materials has led to them becoming fundamental building blocks for achieving novel device physics and potential breakthroughs in practical technologies. 2D layers can be interfaced in a wide array of methods with themselves, other 2D layered materials, or materials of entirely different type or...
Metal halide perovskites have recently emerged as one of the most promising active layers in solar cells for their high power conversion efficiency (>25%) and ease of synthesis and deposition. Spatial heterogeneity is inevitable with current fabrication methods for both monocrystalline and polycrystalline perovskite thin films and crystals. The morphology-dependent...
Molybdenum oxides and sulfides are earth-abundant materials known to catalyze a wide array of reactions, including dehydrogenation, hydrotreating, and higher alcohols synthesis. In particular, alkane and alcohol dehydrogenation are of interest given recent shifts in the energy landscape away from traditional petroleum feedstocks and towards natural gas and renewable energy...
In this thesis, we study the homological mirror symmetry for the Gross-Siebert program of local mirror symmetry. We construct a pair of mirror objects by lifting a tropical curve in the integral tropical manifold of the Gross-Siebert program. Furthermore, we evaluate the central charges of the mirror objects and show...
The leptonic and inclusive hadronic decay branching fractions of the W boson are studied using 35.9 $fb^{-1}$ of proton-proton collision data collected at $\sqrt{s}=13~TeV$ during the 2016 run of the CMS experiment. Events characterized by the production of pairs of W bosons from \ttbar and \tW processes are selected. Multiple...
In this thesis, we aim to develop efficient algorithms with theoretical guarantees for noisy nonlinear optimization problems, with and without constraints, under various different assumptions. Apart from Chapter 1 which provides relevant backgrounds, the remaining of thesis is divided into four chapters. In Chapter 2, we establish the theoretical convergence...
Materials that exist as well-defined individual entities at the nanoscale typically have properties that sets them apart from their bulk form. Consequently, there has been much time and effort invested in developing new well-defined nanoscale entities, but few attempts to assemble them into bulk materials. On the other hand, there...
This dissertation aims to: 1) characterize the range of beliefs museum practitioners have about racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity; 2) their understanding of the role of race, culture, and ethnicity in minoritized learners’ sensemaking; and 3) the areas of tension and symmetry between practitioners’ values and their perception of their...
Chemokines, such as Stromal Derived Factor 1 (SDF-1 or CXCL12) and their G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) are well known regulators of the development and functions of numerous tissues. CXCL12 has two receptors: CXCR4 and CXCR7 or atypical chemokine receptor 3 (ACKR3). CXCR7 has been described as an atypical “biased”...
Herpes simplex virus (HSV) is a ubiquitous human pathogen capable of causing debilitating diseases such as herpes stromal keratitis (HSK) and herpes simplex encephalitis (HSE). Although HSV infection initiates disease pathogenesis, the resulting clinical manifestations are attributed to immunopathological events that occur following viral clearance. To elucidate the molecular mechanisms...