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...
Understanding the chemical complexity of the extracellular matrix (ECM) and how chemical, biological, and physical cues bring changes to the behavior of cells has remained a grand challenge. Addressing these questions requires not only achieving systematic control over the interactions between cells and the ECM but also utilizing suitable analytical...
This dissertation demonstrates how related initiatives to reform narcotics laws and protect consumers from dangerous medicines – taking hold in the 1950s and institutionalized in the mid-1960s – created the foundation for a massive expansion of federal policing of illicit drugs. Centered on the history of the Food and Drug...
This dissertation explores the reciprocal relationship between international politics and digital computation since the 1960s by examining the first attempts to use computer simulation to credibly forecast our planet’s economic and environmental future on a global scale. In particular, this project offers the first sustained historical analysis of the origins...
Achievement gaps between students from different SES and racial/ethnic backgrounds stubbornly persist despite decades of policy interventions. My dissertation focuses on several unexpected sources of stress and disruption that may be related to the achievement gap: sunlight exposure, a sister’s teen childbearing, and nearby violent crime. I demonstrate that these...
What are the origins of race-based affirmative action in college admissions? With only a few exceptions, there remain few evidence-based accounts of when and why such programs emerged among selective institutions of higher education; how heavily they weighed racial considerations; and how exactly race was taken into account. This paper...
Introduction: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a disorder of gut-brain interaction associated with reduced quality of life, increased rates of depression and anxiety, and high economic burden to society and the individual. Current behavioral interventions, which target well-known symptom exacerbating factors such as catastrophizing and gastrointestinal- specific anxiety, have demonstrated...
Bitcoin is a decentralized payment system proposed in 2008 by Nakamoto, who remains anonymous to date. It offers an effective alternative to fiat money or centralized payment systems with advantages on privacy, anonymity, and low international remittance fees. The transactions in Bitcoin payment system are sent through a peer-to-peer network,...
Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a human herpesvirus that is able to infect both epithelial cells as well as B lymphocytes, where the virus stablishes life-long latency in the host. Five glycoproteins are involved in infection of B cells: gp350/220 for initial tethering of the virus to the cell via CD21,...
Subsolidus phase relationships within the ZnO-In<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>-SnO<sub>2</sub> system at 1275 <sup>o</sup>C were established by conventional solid state reaction methods. No new compounds or structures were observed within the ternary diagram. Equilibrium in the ZnO-corner, between the homologous compounds and the spinel phase, was found difficult to achieve. This problem was overcome...