People sometimes gain a sudden idea through insight after being stuck on a problem. Researchers have been studying insight as a crucial component of creative problem-solving in the past decades. However, the role of insight in mathematical problem-solving remains unclear, while mathematics is essential in scientific development and ubiquitous in...
The work presented in this thesis is to describe the fabrication of the nano-composites of carbonaceous materials (e.g. graphene oxide) and metal oxides (e.g. Titanium dioxide TiO2) for two specific applications in the field of public health protection: 1.) removal of micropollutants (MPs) in the aqueous environment; 2.) antimicrobial coating.The...
Anthropologists engaging with biopolitical theory have commonly assumed that biomedicine is a tool for enacting state-based policies to manage population health. Recent insights in medical anthropology have troubled this assumption, calling into question the role of physicians as “handmaidens” of state-based health policy. I use my position as a physician-anthropologist...
The role of providing care for a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease can expose friends and family caregivers to significant stress over an extended period of time, resulting in a host of negative outcomes like increased depression and anxiety, and diminished quality of life. However, previous studies have found that...
Scholarly inquiry has yielded a wealth of evidence in support of narrative-based strategies for persuasion, and yet support for this approach is less consistent in relation to contentious or controversial issues. To better understand why this might be the case, the first part of this dissertation reports a theoretically-guided content...
Prisoner reentry has become an increasingly popular topic of research in the past few decades due to the phenomenon of mass return as a result of the era of mass incarceration. While research has been done on the experiences of the returning population before mass incarceration, few contemporary researchers have...
Directional freeze-casting is a porous materials fabrication technique that is used to create materials with complex, three-dimensional pore structures. Particle suspensions are solidified under a thermal gradient, promoting anisotropic growth of dendrites and incorporation of particles within interdendritic space. A fully-solidified directional freeze-cast structure is composed of dendrites that are...
Interpenetrating polymer networks (IPNs) are multicomponent materials that enhance the compatibility of otherwise immiscible polymers by trapping the microstructure in a non-equilibrium state. By combining polymers with vastly different moduli, IPNs effectively disperse rigid polymers within a soft matrix, resulting in a reinforced elastomer. This approach significantly increases the modulus...
Large scale adoption of sustainable technologies for energy productionand storage can be greatly facilitated by scientific advances impacting efficiency, cost and availability. The study of materials is instrumental in both upgrading the performance of existing technologies and enabling the development of new ones, and ab-initio methods and machine learning represent...
Chronic stress is a significant risk factor for the development of numerous psychiatric disorders, including major depressive disorder (MDD). Individuals with MDD exhibit impairments in reward processing and decreased motivation to engage in previously-rewarding activities. Importantly, there is a large sex disparity in MDD diagnosis, such that it affects nearly...
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...
Ankle sprains are the most common musculoskeletal injury. After an ankle sprain, about 40% of individuals develop Chronic Ankle Instability (CAI), resulting in recurrent sprains, the ankle giving way, or feelings of instability. Most sprains occur due to excess inversion of the ankle. Frontal-plane ankle stiffness quantifies the ankle’s ability...
Human skin oils are significant scavengers of atmospheric oxidants in occupied indoor environments. Many techniques used to study gas-phase transformations of surface films indoors have been limited to off-line bulk analysis, although more surface-selective methodologies are emerging. Here, we present a multi-prong analytical approach to characterizing skin oil ozonolysis. Skin...
The need for complex and sophisticated materials continues to grow as society becomes more advanced. For many chemists, the design of these materials begins by looking towards model molecular systems for the identification of desirable properties and functions. As such, restricting oneself to C, H, N, O, and the other...
Each neuron in the primary motor cortex (M1) is like a musician in an orchestra, contributing to a larger harmony under the constraint of a “neural manifold”—a geometric score describing the correlated signals produced by the neural musicians that drive movement. Despite the widespread recognition of the importance of M1...
Rivers and streams play a critical role in connecting major global carbon pools – land, oceans, and atmosphere. The longitudinal flow in rivers and streams allows for the integration and transport of fluvial particulate organic carbon (POC) from various sources and its continual transformation. A continuum-oriented perspective suggests longitudinal variations...
Kaposi’ sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) causes primary effusion lymphoma (PEL). PEL cell lines require expression of the cellular FLICE inhibitory protein (cFLIP) for survival, although KSHV encodes a viral homolog of this protein (vFLIP). Cellular and viral FLIP proteins have several functions, including, most importantly, the inhibition of pro-apoptotic caspase 8...
This thesis document is comprised of three research projects. The first investigates the active vibrational modes involved in twisted intramolecular charge transfer in a Julolidine-BODIPY dyad using two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy along with DFT calculations. We identified two types of vibrations, compression and torsional motion, as playing an important role in...
Renewable energy technology, more so than ever before, is critical to the survival of humanity. For decades, concentrated efforts into designing and developing such novel devices resulted in the innovation of solar-driven photovoltaics that were competitive with nonrenewable alternatives. This thesis explores the dynamic behavior of alternative material candidates that...
Assistive robots have the potential to support motor recovery after an injury as well as to alleviate the burden of physical tasks for both impaired and able-bodied individuals. Over the last few decades assistive robots have become increasingly more capable. Many can now provide task-specific assistance and can be safe...
This dissertation uses the case of Colombia to examine the causes and reproductive mechanisms of civil wars that last more than fifty years, which I call perpetual civil wars. It draws on network analysis of violent events and political claims, content analysis of official archival documents and historical records of...
Swallowing impairment or dysphagia has many possible causes with severe sequelae. One major mediator of the relationship between causes and sequelae is the physiologic impairment of the swallowing mechanism. Assessing the physiology of swallowing impairment is of great importance so that treatment can target physiology to mitigate sequelae. The assessment...
Stairs and curbs often present as an exhausting environmental barrier for individuals with bilateral cerebral palsy (CP) due to their lower limb motor impairments. Indeed, performance in stair-climbing in this population has a higher correlation with disruption of mobility than walking. Community members affected by CP consider impaired mobility a...
The rise in children’s media use (Rideout & Robb, 2020) and the prioritization of STEM learning (Fayer et al., 2017) has led to the development of new STEM-related apps, TV shows, and other media for young children. One topic in this area gaining popularity is computational thinking (CT). Researchers refer...
A proliferation of new media platforms have upended the traditional roles that journalists have played in society, placing their work into content streams that are populated by creators who mimic the surface features of their work but not their methods. As a result, journalists’ practices and news media that they...
In this dissertation, we aim to develop a theoretical understanding of foundation models and reinforcement learning. We delve into a comprehensive analysis of specific aspects within these domains. The focal points of our study are as follows: • Generative Adversarial Imitation Learning (GAIL) with Neural Networks: GAIL is poised to...
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are porous, crystalline materials synthesized by combining metal nodes and organic linkers through self-assembly. The diverse range of building blocks available allows for extensive tunability of MOFs, enabling the optimization of these materials for various applications, such as gas storage, separations, and catalysis. This study aimed to...
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...
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,...
Mission-critical systems are those imperative systems whose failures can result in catastrophic consequences. Traditional techniques, such as manual investigation and testing, cannot ensure the absence of errors and security vulnerabilities within these systems. This dissertation leverages formal methods to comprehensively examine several mission-critical systems and their essential components. For each...
The advent of advanced computing and AI has led to social technologies becoming agentic teammates in human-autonomy teams. Interpersonal trust, vital for team functioning, is crucial in determining these teams' success or failure. Trust, while essential, can be easily broken and requires maintenance and repair. This dissertation addresses two questions:...
“National Acts: Performance, Commemoration, and the Construction of American Public Memory” explores how sites of public commemoration created during and after the American Civil War crafted conceptions of American public memory and identities through performative processes. This dissertation looks at three commemorative efforts: the Freedmen’s Memorial Monument to Abraham Lincoln,...
This thesis investigates Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s undermining of soteriological poetics in his comedy Der Schwierige (“The Difficult Man”), with a focus on the complex interplay between meta-language (e.g., stage directions) and dramatic dialogue, normative and contingent speech (i.e., ‘ironic speech’). By challenging what I term the “soteriological agenda” of comedy...
