Carbonate minerals are integral to life on earth, as reservoirs for CO2 in the earth’s natural carbon cycle and as the skeletal elements of abundant organisms like corals and plankton. Because of its relevance, availability, and low toxicity, calcium carbonate is also an important model system for phase transformations in...
Whether in the Synagogue or the Greek Orthodox Church, worshippers are physically active throughout chanted prayer, exhibiting a variety of metrical interactions between their voices and bodily movements. Existing scholarship on rhythm and meter, embodied music experience, and ritual indicate that metrical synchronization is a fundamental mode of sonic and...
This dissertation examines how filmic, literary, and popular musical performances of black female sexualities in the post- civil rights era both reveal and frustrate state-sanctioned infringements on black freedom. “The Paradox of Black Freedom: Black Female Sexuality in Contemporary Performance, 1965-2000” elucidates a powerful paradox wherein the US state enacts...
As type 2 diabetes requires complex self-management behaviors to avoid long-term complications, it is crucial that practitioners understand the psychosocial factors that may affect diabetic patients’ chronic disease self-management. Previous literature has identified depression and sleep disturbance as salient psychosocial factors that may impede self-management behaviors and lead to less...
The Escherichia coli ribosome is a 2.4 MDa molecular machine that consists of a large subunit and a small subunit, and is the key catalyst in gene expression, responsible for synthesizing proteins from amino acids in a sequence-defined fashion with impressive speed and accuracy. Expanding the repertoire of ribosome substrates...
The form and function of neural circuits are shaped by experience during critical periods of development. Recently, our lab discovered an important outcome of critical period plasticity in the visual system, namely, binocular matching of orientation preference, whereby initially randomly aligned orientation preferences become matched in individual cells. Following this...
Smartphone is becoming ubiquitous and its sales proportions have exceeded the sales of personal computer systems since 2012. The number of smartphones will increase and perhaps at an even higher rate in the coming years. The computational capacity and numerous mobile applications benefit end user's daily life. At the same...
Background: Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a significant public health issue. Previous research on the pathophysiology of depression in adults has demonstrated abnormal neural processing associated with depression symptomatology including alterations in reward and aversion circuits. Loss aversion (LA), or the concept that individuals evaluate outcomes based on losses and...
This dissertation examines the gradual construction and contested meanings of U.S. slavery’s first western border. According to most historiography, Congress’s Northwest Ordinance of 1787 fixed the meaning of this border at the nation’s inception, constituting the Northwest Territory as the free opposite of slave territories south and west of the...
Efferocytosis is the anti-inflammatory removal of dying cells and cellular debris, occurring billions of times per person, per day as a part of homeostatic maintenance during natural cell turnover. Macrophages are major professional phagocytes of the immune system and are responsible for dead cell clearance during infection and injury. During...