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...