This project argues that displays of humanist learning in diplomacy served to demonstrate the extraordinary good will of the Florentine regime towards a host ruler. I call this act of surpassing previous oratorical gestures a "cultural gift". Although the singular goal of humanism in diplomacy remained offering cultural gifts in...
The use of cluster randomized experiments to study the effects of treatments on groups of subjects has increased in recent years. Many of these experiments lack the necessary statistical power to detect practically meaningful effects of treatment. One method for improving power in cluster randomized experiments that has been advanced...
We present several multiscale quantum mechanical (QM), molecular mechanical (MM), and continuum mechanical (CM) schemes to study the strength properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene sheets. A bridging domain method based on overlapping domain-decomposition schemes using the Lagrange multipliers field is developed to couple an atomistic domain with a...
The current trend of ceramic nanotechnology has motivated an ever-increasing need to achieve exquisite control over size, shape, and spatial confinement for functional oxide architectures, in an equivalent manner demonstrated for semiconductors. However, the unique nature of ceramics has posed major challenges for most traditional nanofabrication technologies, putting the development...
The proper distribution of cellular organelles and protein complexes is important for maintaining cellular organization and function. Transport in eukaryotic cells requires three motor proteins, kinesin, dynein, and myosin, attached to specific cargoes mostly by adaptor proteins. This work focuses on the mechanism of microtubule-dependent organelle transport in vivo.
This...
Integrated circuits have been continuously scaled to increase speed and integration density as a means to improve the performance or pack more functionality. However, an extremely enormous amount of effort is needed to further scale the dimensions in deep submicron technologies. As technology scaling is slowing down and design complexity...
Integrated circuits have been continuously scaled to increase speed and integration density as a means to improve the performance or pack more functionality. However, an extremely enormous amount of effort is needed to further scale the dimensions in deep submicron technologies. As technology scaling is slowing down and design complexity...
"How did the Civil Rights Movement bring about change?" In answer to that question, this dissertation argues that the splintering of purity rhetoric within the intimate environments of home and sanctuary both inhibited and empowered white and African-American religious practitioners to seek social change. To make this argument, this project...
The work of this dissertation was aimed at synthesizing new types of nanoparticle-DNA conjugates, investigating their chemical and physical properties, and exploring their biodiagnostic applications. Chapters Two and Three describe the synthesis of new types of nanoparticle-DNA conjugates: (1) silver nanoparticle-DNA conjugates (DNA-Ag NPs) and (2) 2-nm gold nanoparticle-DNA conjugates...
As manufacturing technology moves toward fundamental limits of silicon CMOS processing, it is increasingly important to utilize the full potential of available transistors and interconnects. While manufacturing technology faces fundamental limits inherent in physical laws or material properties, design and verification technology faces fundamental limitations inherent in the computational intractability...