Pain normally subserves a vital role in the survival of the organism by prompting the avoidance of situations associated with tissue damage. However, the sensation of pain can become dissociated from its normal physiological role when the pain-sensing nervous system becomes hypersensitive, a condition known as neuropathic pain. Currently available...
A practical challenge in wireless communication systems is acquisition of channel state information at the transmitter and the receiver. In this thesis, we address the problem of training and limited-rate feedback optimization for fading channels. In a wideband (multi-carrier) channel, given limited coherence time and power, only a finite number...
Step length is a common measurement taken during gait analyses. It allows one to determine asymmetries between the two legs, compare differences between subjects, and even compare intra-subject differences for changing parameters. Yet there has been little investigation of step length specifically and how it is modulated during walking. This...
Television's history has at numerous points been punctuated by pronouncements that technological innovations will improve its programming, empower its audiences, and heal the injuries it has inflicted on American society. This enduring faith in the inevitability and imminence of television's technological salvation is the subject of this dissertation. "TV Repair"...
Peptide Amphiphile (PA) molecules developed in the author's laboratory and others have shown great versatility in creating self-assembled nanostructures with built-in biological and/or chemical functionalities. Their applications in spinal cord injury repair, angiogenesis, promoting cell adhesion and templating inorganic materials have also been well studied. Complementing previous compositional studies, where...
PRC is a PGC-1 coactivator family member responsive to serum growth factors and up regulated in proliferating cells. Unlike PGC-1α and PGC-1β, PRC has not been studied extensively and and its function or regulation remains largely unknown. Both PGC-1α and PGC-1β have been shown to be important regulators of mitochondrial...
Previous research has shown that creative insight problem-solving is distinct from systematic analytical problem-solving. Behaviorally, a positive mood has shown to facilitate insights but without knowing the processes that are fundamental to insight, the mechanisms as to how a positive mood facilitates insights have remained unspecified. Here, we investigate the...
This thesis discusses the synthesis, self-assembly, and conductivity properties of novel oligothiophene derivatives with an emphasis on how molecular structure effects the assembly. In order to facilitate self-assembly in conjugated molecules, specific non-covenant forces were included into the molecular design of several derivatives. First, an amphiphilic oligothiophene derivative consisting of...
The work described in this dissertation focuses on the development of a general approach to create nanoscale transition metal chalcogenide materials and new methods for controlling architecture of gold pyramidal structures. In the former, we used chemical nanofabrication, a combination of top-down patterning and bottom-up solid-state synthesis, to achieve control...
Predictive modeling has emerged as a new research subject that studies a broad range of modeling techniques to provide confident prediction of the phenomenon of interest by integrating scientific principles together with both computer models and observed physical experiments. Motivated by overcoming the existing challenges, the objective in this dissertation...