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...
Pollution-intensive industrial manufacturing processes threaten the health of ecosystems and societies through toxic waste streams and energy intensive processes that lead to greenhouse gas emissions. Biological systems present more sustainable routes to many useful industrial chemicals by using enzymes at low temperatures, but the time and effort required to optimized...
One of the greatest challenges in heterogeneous catalysis is the rational design and development of new catalytic systems, due to synthetic limitations in the design of solid catalysts and inhomogeneity of chemical sites at solid surfaces. This obfuscates understanding of catalyst behavior and slows improvements of processes. One approach to...
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...
Morality has been viewed as a core aspect of the self and even a basic psychological need. Strategies for regulating threats to moral self-views may therefore be distinct from regulating threats to other self-aspects. Consistent with research on the regulation of basic psychological needs, I hypothesized that threats to the...
Heterogenous catalysis is the pillar of chemical production and a crucial aspect for optimization toward a sustainable future. To improve the current design of heterogeneous catalysts of maximal activity and product selectivity, gaining fundamental understanding of the catalytic active sites is crucial. The nature of active sites has been the...
The continuing increase in atmospheric CO2 to concentrations exceeding 400 ppm has attracted considerable attention from both scientists and policymakers. Industrial fossil fuel consumption generates a significant amount of CO2 emissions, and in particular, energy-intensive molecular separations that require thermal processes, such as distillation, drying, or evaporation, are responsible for...
In recent years, motivated by the approaching of quantum limit for classic information science, the development of quantum information science (QIS) has drawn considerable interest from chemists and physicians. Different from classical bits which can only be localized on two different states, quantum bit, which can be simplified as qubit,...
The literature on racial/ethnic diversity in schools largely shows evidence of positive academic outcomes for students in diverse schools relative to segregated schools. At the same time, there is ample research demonstrating the discrimination and marginalization that students of color experience in desegregated schools. In this dissertation, I seek to...
For many years silicon tethers have been used to increase yields and control the stereochemical and regiochemical outcomes of coupling reactions. Silicon tethers may be incorporated into a wide range of reaction types including alkene metathesis, cycloadditions, and glycosylations. This thesis focuses on the development of the use of silicon...
Lignin is the largest store of renewable aromatic carbon. Due to its refractory nature, however, its chemical potential is not fully realized, rather, most lignin is treated as a waste, burned for low-value energy. Here, we propose a biorefinery where the treatment of wastewater by a microbial electrolysis cell (MEC)...
Temperature affects all biological processes, from the rate of cellular growth and metabolism to the stability of proteins that make up the machinery of life itself. Thus, all organisms must have the capacity to detect and respond to external temperature. Thermosensation endows animals with the ability to sense and respond...
Heart failure is a growing clinical problem, and inherited cardiomyopathies contribute significantly to heart failure. Among the many genes associated with inherited cardiomyopathies, mutations in FLNC, the gene encoding the cytoskeletal protein filamin C, associate with a range of cardiomyopathy and increased risk for arrhythmia and sudden cardiac death in...
In the late 2000’s, scientific studies in cultural heritage saw a great advancement in macro X-ray fluorescence (XRF) imaging of paintings. These images are used to generate elemental distribution maps, which aid in identifying chemical elements and paint pig- ments as well as their locations throughout the layers of the...
Objective: To evaluate patient-reported experiences of telehealth and disparities in access, use, and satisfaction with telehealth visits during the COVID-19 pandemic (aim 1), to evaluate prevalence of portal use pre-, peri-, and post-pandemic, among the C3 cohort, and investigate any disparities in use by sociodemographic factors (aim 2), and to...
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,...
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...
An important tenet in memory research is the dissociation between explicit and implicit memory systems in the brain. Whereas a robust literature exists on the consolidation of memories in the explicit domain, research on implicit memory consolidation is relatively understudied, particularly questions about what is being consolidated and the mechanisms...
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...
In recent years, the understanding and identification of quantum materials supporting non-trivial band topology has progressed rapidly. This progress has been motivated in part by the potential application of topological quantum materials in quantum computers, sensors, and other next-generation devices. Despite this progress, the computation of bulk topological invariants in...
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...
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...
Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection elicits both protein and lipid antigen-specific T cell responses. However, the incorporation of lipid antigens into subunit vaccine strategies and formulations has been under-explored, and the properties of vaccine-induced Mtb lipid-specific memory T cells have remained elusive. Mycolic acid (MA), a major lipid component of the...
On March 11, 1966, Indonesian President Soekarno suddenly transferred executive power to the Army, which has played a role in the Indonesian state and society since the late 1950s. This act replaced Soekarno’s own government with a military dictatorship dubbed the New Order, which lasted for nearly 32 years. Why...
Many processes in nature and human-made settings rely on the unique properties of charged metal oxide:aqueous interfaces. Despite their ubiquity, these buried interfaces are challenging to study, since any analytical technique aiming to overcome the relatively small number density of interfacial versus bulk species must be highly sensitive and surface-selective....
In this thesis, I study the effects of spillovers in all-pay auctions and the effects ofregulating wages and hours on the labor market. In the first chapter, I study a model of
asymmetric all-pay auctions with spillovers. In this model, players compete for a prize, and
the sunk effort players...
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...
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...
Equilibrium models of star formation successfully derive the globally-averaged Kennicutt-Schmidt (KS) relation, positing that star formation rates (SFRs) are self- regulated by the turbulence in the interstellar medium (ISM) generated by stellar feedback. However, these models make assumptions that may not be achieved in realistic galaxy systems. Cosmological zoom-in simulations,...
Despite the increasing interest in biogenic secondary organic aerosols (SOAs), their role in the climate system remains the greatest source of uncertainty in global models. Cloud formation, critical for the net cooling effect provided by cloud cover, is dependent on the abundance of SOA particles and their ability to activate...
Recent experiments in participatory democracy, such as Iceland’s 2013 Constitutional Reform process to Chicago’s annual participatory budgeting process, have empowered members of the public to directly make policy decisions. These new participatory democratic institutions depend on citizens having capacity to organize new institutions and the capacity to participate in them....
How molecular chirality manifests at the nano- to macroscale has been a scientific puzzle since Louis Pasteur discovered biochirality. In general, amphiphilic molecules can organize into a variety of assembly shapes including micelles, spherical vesicles, cylindrical micelles, and planar bilayers. However, when such amphiphilic molecules are chiral, helical ribbons, helicoidal...
Transcription plays a pivotal role in the transfer of genetic information within living organisms. It serves as the initial step in gene expression, allowing cells to convert the instructions encoded in their DNA into functional molecules. Eukaryotic transcription initiation is a complex and dynamic process that requires joint efforts from...
Topology optimization is a powerful tool for maximizing structural performance, enabling multifunctionality of the structure, and reducing the materials waste and cost for sustainable manufacturing. However, current topology optimization tools are limited to a few scales, and the potential of nested topology optimization in engineering design has yet to be...
Global dementia diagnoses are steeply increasing. While advances in neuroimaging, neuropathology, and genetics research have improved our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases causing dementia, precise antemortem diagnosis, as well as sensitive and specific biomarkers that can facilitate a differential diagnosis and aid in participant recruitment in clinical trials, remains elusive. The...
This dissertation focuses on quantifying protein folding stability determinants and presenting initial experiments that can guide the development of a novel assay that identifies cell-penetrating miniproteins. First, despite over a century of scholarship on protein folding stability, applying this knowledge to design proteins computationally remains limited. Usually, protein designers generate...
“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,...
Submodularity is a well-known concept in integer programming and combinatorial optimization. Submodular set functions capture the diminishing returns phenomenon, which has wide-ranging applications in various domains. Typically, a submodular set function models the utility of homogenous items selected from a single ground set. Selecting an item or not is naturally...
The Operating System (OS) kernel is a key component of modern computing infrastructure, yet it is prone to numerous vulnerabilities, many of which cause memory corruptions that can be exploited by attackers to perform malicious activities. While various techniques have been introduced to secure the Linux kernel, it still constantly...
The functions of lubricants in moving interfaces are extensive; lubricants minimize friction, transfer heat, clean the rubbing surfaces, extract debris, and diminish wear. Rather than using separate lubricants for each of the functions, it is more desirable to make one lubricant serve multiple purposes, or a muti-functional lubricant. The goals...
Early transition metal organometallics chemisorbed on extremely Brønsted acidic sulfated metal oxides such as sulfated alumina (AlS) and sulfated zirconia (ZrS) produce highly active single-site catalysts for olefin polymerization, alkene and arene hydrogenation, and alkane hydrogenolysis, typically with a large percentage of catalytically significant sites. The low support conjugate basicity...