What can the theatrical use of food accomplish in performances which assert cultural, legal, or moral rights to food production and consumption in a food insecure society? Case studies comprising the USDA's 1933-34 World's Fair exhibits, the May 1933 Wisconsin Cooperative Milk Pool protest, the 1936 Federal Theatre Project living...
"Prufrock" to <em>The Waste Land</em>: T. S. Eliot's Periodical Publications, 1915-1922 Randall J. Woods This dissertation presents, in publication date order, the 167 articles published by T. S. Eliot from 1915 to 1922, most of which have never been reprinted. They include literary criticism, book reviews, poetry, philosophical essays, humorous...
I study several aspects of a game-theoretic model of persuasion. A speaker attempts to persuade a listener to take an action which is highly ranked by the speaker. The listener knows the speaker's preference but is uncertain about what the speaker can say. The listener can commit to a persuasion...
Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) is an aphasic dementia syndrome caused by neurodegenerative disease in which linguistic abilities are selectively disrupted in the relative absence of other cognitive deficits in early stages. The studies presented in this thesis were designed to examine the integrity of word and object processing by contrasting...
Chinese television has gone through enormous growth and significant structural change since the economic reforms of the 1970s. The changes include an increased number of channels, the establishment of overseas channels, increased reliance on advertising, more diversified programming, and heightened market competition. The new multi-channel media environment has the potential...
Small area estimation (SAE) has been one of the most active areas in survey methodology research, due to the increasing demand for small area statistics from government agencies and the private sector. But in some areas of interest, sample sizes could be very small, or even zero, in which case,...
Commercially available electrically powered prosthetic elbows are stiff and unyielding. Making these artificial limb replacements more closely mimic human elbows by increasing their compliance may be beneficial. In addition to having increased compliance compared with current electrically powered prosthetic elbows, humans modulate the overall impedance of their joints. The author...
An understanding of how two people anticipate, adapt, and react to each other's forces and motions could aid in designing machines to work cooperatively with humans and further explain how a single human interacts with the world. Tasks, such as lifting and moving a bulky object, teaching manual skills, dancing,...
The present dissertation includes my research on modeling financial market returns and volatility on high frequency data. It consists of three chapters.
The first chapter introduces a novel high-frequency volatility estimator based on large price moves, which constitutes a generalization of the standard range. An asymptotic theory is developed in...
Information processing in the striatum is crucial for voluntary movement control and associative learning and in the normal condition is subject to balanced dopaminergic and cholinergic modulation. However, in Parkinson's disease (PD) striatal dopamine (DA) level falls because of degeneration of DA neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta and...
This dissertation investigates the ways in which poetry encourages visual images in the reader. This investigation breaks new ground, for in the wake of behaviorist psychology and the linguistic turn in literary theory, literary critics have ignored and often spurned the visual imagination. The project uses Imagist poetry as a...
This dissertation explains why some rebel groups act in a highly coercive fashion toward local populations, only to shift to increasingly contractual behavior, and why other groups that share similar circumstances evolve in the opposite direction. Drawing upon fieldwork in Sudan, Iraq, Turkey, and Colombia, this study examines three rebel...
Social networks play an important role in the labor market. Various surveys document that 30-60% of jobs are found through friends or relatives. To better understand how networks operate in the labor market, I examine how networks that were formed involuntarily as a result of the American Civil War and...
In this dissertation we analyze, using standard formal imperfect competition models from the literature, two central public policy issues in the deregulated wholesale electricity markets. The first issue is the regulatory rules around generator ownership of transmission companies or transmission rights in general. The second issue we look into is...
In mammalian development, cell specification and organogenesis are achieved by the regulated expression and repression of specific subsets of genes. The anterior pituitary gland, comprised of five cell types that arise from a common precursor, is an excellent model system for understanding these developmental processes. Examination of factors regulating transcription...
Recent work exploring children's verb learning in the laboratory has generated some interesting contradictions. Some studies have found that children as old as 4 years old are unable to reliably map a novel verb to an action (e.g., Kersten & Smith, 2002; Imai, Haryu, & Okada, 2005), even though much...
The study of III-Nitride based optoelectronics devices is a maturing field, but there are still many underdeveloped areas in which to make a contribution of new and original research. This work specifically targets the goals of realizing high-efficiency back-illuminated solar-blind photodetectors, solar-blind focal plane arrays, and visible- and solar-blind Avalanche...
We compute Lawson homology groups and semi-topological K-theory for certain "degenerate" varieties. "Degenerate" varieties are those smooth complex projective varieties whose zero cycles are supported on a proper subvariety. Rationally connected varieties are examples of such varieties. Our main method of study makes use of a technique of Bloch and...
Autoxidation is a primary route by which lubricants in working conditions undergo degradation. Degraded lubricants, if not replaced periodically, contribute to increased wear and product failure. Experimental studies of lubricant degradation have yielded useful results but have left important questions unanswered. While many computational studies of degradation have been carried...
Substrate-mediated delivery involves the immobilization of DNA, complexed with nonviral vectors, to a biomaterial or surface that supports cell adhesion. Cells cultured on the substrate are exposed to elevated DNA concentrations within the local microenvironment, which enhances transfection. As surface properties are critical to this delivery approach, self-assembled monolayers (SAMs)...
Wave propagation at the bottom of the electromagnetic spectrum (below 300 kHz) in the Earth-ionosphere system is a problem having a rich history of theoretical investigation extending over many decades. Propagation within this system involves complex interactions of electromagnetic waves with the lithosphere, oceans, and ionosphere, leading to resonances that...
Should the government subsidize entry to promote competition? In theory, free entry does not guarantee the socially optimum number of entrants. In differentiated product markets, free entry can result either in excessive or insufficient entry. Quantifying this inefficiency and identifying the optimal subsidy level require an empirical framework that combines...
This dissertation studies the organizing local approach to labor renewal, a union model centered on organizing new workers. I examine the role of activists and what motivates them to participate beyond a rational evaluation of gains. Additionally, I establish the conditions for successful union reform, specifically, how to overcome inertial...
The motion of thin drops under the effects of surfactants and gravity is studied. First, the effects of surfactant and temperature on the spreading of a viscous droplet are considered. Lubrication theory is used to develop a two-dimensional model for the evolution of the droplet. The surfactant is assumed to...
The goal of this dissertation was to examine the influence of motivational incentives on visual spatial attention in patients with probable Alzheimer's Disease (PRAD), patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and healthy age-matched control subjects (EC). Specifically, I compared the ability of monetary incentives to influence behavioral and neural performance...
I examine horizontally differentiated firms in three different contexts. First, I look at an industry where firms can develop self-customizable products -- products which appeal to different consumers for different reasons. This addition results in an unexpected conclusion that sometimes more differentiated firms can end up with lower profits than...
Ceramic matrix composites are known for their low density, high strength and high stiffness, but lower fracture toughness compared to metal matrix composites. The addition of a reinforcing agent within the matrix can increase the toughness of the composite via many strain energy absorption mechanisms such as plastic deformation. This...
The goal of this study was to investigate the properties of the retinal ganglion cell receptive field at low light levels. There has been considerable interest in whether the surround of a ganglion cell receptive field disappears and the center expands in size under scotopic conditions. The previous data from...
Modeling and simulation at different scales were used to study mass transport, residence times and selective oxidation in nanostructured membranes. First, analytical equations of the possible mass transport mechanisms inside the pores were used to determine that diffusion dominates over convection under the conditions of interest for selective oxidation: 700...
The purpose of this dissertation study was to build on scholarly work in the area of critical mathematics by such scholars as Gutstein (2003) and Gutierrez (2002). Critical pedagogy is designed to foster political agency and critical consciousness in students (Freire, 1971). That is the aim of critical mathematics in...
The abundance and breadth of condition data generated by advanced inspection technologies have increased the frequency and accuracy of data collection, which is not exploited by the existing performance models. Moreover, simultaneity of deterioration and maintenance causes difficulty of estimating effectiveness of maintenance activities for existing performance models. To address...
The optical and magneto-optical properties of the ferromagnetic semiconductors, InMnAs and its alloy InMnAsP were investigated to determine the band structure and nature of the ferromagnetism in these materials. Alloys were grown by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy. Infrared absorption of InMnAs was investigated to determine the presence and properties of...
Experimental and numerical studies of lasing in multiple light scattering media with gain are presented in this thesis. Depending on the dielectric constant spatial distribution is random or periodic, two different kinds of lasers are discussed: the random laser and the photonic crystal laser. This thesis, therefore, is divided into...
Spectral elements are p-type element which can provide better accuracy
and faster convergence. However, applications of these elements make
conformation to discontinuities in the function or its derivative
difficult. The eXtended Finite Element Method (XFEM) recently
developed at Northwestern University can easily treat the arbitrarily
aligned discontinuities, i.e. independent of...
Two-year colleges are a critical site for the expansion of educational opportunity in the United States. They enroll nearly half of all postsecondary students and are a gateway to higher education for low-income, non-traditional, racial and ethnic minority, and first-generation college students. Degree completion rates in the two-year sector are...
Most women diagnosed with epithelial ovarian carcinoma (EOC) initially present with metastases, but little is known about the regulation of ovarian tumor cell dissemination by the tumor microenvironment. Because ovarian cancer cell dissemination is mostly limited to the peritoneal cavity and often results in the accumulation of malignant ascites, the...
Arsenic trioxide (As<sub>2</sub>0<sub>3</sub>) is an arsenic-derivative that exhibits potent growth inhibitory effects against malignant cells. The remarkable antitumor effects of As<sub>2</sub>0<sub>3</sub> in vitro and in vivo have prompted the development of various clinical trials that established its activity in acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL). As<sub>2</sub>0<sub>3</sub> is part of the standard treatment...
The work presented here represents a series of research projects that are unified in their goal: to use volume holographic gratings to enhance traditional signal processing applications in ways that would otherwise not be possible. To this end, we have completed work that can be classified into four different projects....
Three critical problem areas pertinent to the development of precision high-speed spindles for meso-scale machine tools (mMTs), driven by air turbines, constitute the focus of this work. These are the development of the spindle, of a new tool clamping device, and of a measurement system for spindle error motions.
For...
This dissertation is a multi-method study of the relocation process under the Chicago Housing Authority's implementation of federal redevelopment policies intended to decrease the racial and economic isolation of public housing tenants. It combines quantitative and spatial analysis of program administrative data, interviews with 'expert respondents,' and qualitative semi-structured interviews...
The role that spinal motion plays during ambulation is not clearly understood. Little in vivo regional spinal motion data exists in the literature with regard to walking and most gait models disregard the upper body altogether, or regard it as a single rigid structure. This study aims to increase understanding...
Fundamental investigations on the origins of friction at the nanoscale were carried out using both theoretical and experimental approaches. A model was developed that analytically solves for friction by the motion of dislocations at atomically flat crystalline interfaces. It combines known concepts from dislocation drag, grain boundary theory, and contact...
Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), renowned for their high electrical generation efficiency with low pollutant production, are promising for reducing global energy and environmental concerns. However, there are major barriers for SOFC commercialization. A primary challenge is reducing the capital cost of SOFC power plants to levels that can compete...
Stem cells show great promise as cellular replacement and drug delivery therapies for a number of neurological disorders. This dissertation examines embryonic and adult types of stem cells, their plasticity, and mechanisms governing their development (Chapters 1-5). Our studies illustrate that leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) signaling and bone morphogenetic protein...
Biomorphic silicon carbide (bioSiC) is a novel porous ceramic material derived directly from wood precursors. This material is fabricated by pyrolysis of a natural wood precursor in an inert atmosphere leaving an amorphous carbon scaffold. The amorphous carbon is infiltrated with molten Si in vacuum at elevated temperature, which reacts...
Neurofibrillary tangle (NFT) formation in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and tauopathies occurs when tau protein adopts secondary structure and self-aggregates within neurons. Accompanying NFT maturation are post-translational modifications to tau; hyperphosphorylation, truncation and conformational changes occur in a highly sequential manner. In contrast, granulovacuolar degeneration bodies (GVDs) are a second type...
The electronic transport and magnetoresistive properties of the ferromagnetic semiconductor In1-xMnxAs were investigated in order to determine the nature of the transport and ferromagnetism in the films. p-InMnAs/n-InAs and metal/oxide/InMnAs heterojunctions were fabricated and characterized to elucidate the transport and magnetoresistance mechanisms at these technologically important interfaces.
The electronic transport...
The Galactic center (GC) is a dense and chaotic region filled with unusual sources, such as intense star forming regions, dense star clusters, nonthermal radio filaments, and a massive black hole. The proximity of the GC region makes it an ideal place to study the unusual processes that tend to...
Flexibility can be created in manufacturing and service operations by using multipurpose production sources such as cross-trained labor and flexible machines/factories. We focus on control and design issues in systems with flexible resources. In Chapter 2, we consider optimal scheduling of a fully cross-trained server in a finite-population queueing system...
Two new strategies have been developed to accomplish direct nucleophilic acylation reactions. In the first approach, acylsilanes are added to various electrophiles using N-heterocyclic carbenes as catalysts. The second method utilizes O-silyl thiazolium carbinols as stoichiometric acyl anion precursors to afford acylated products under mild reaction conditions.
N-heterocyclic carbenes generated...
The rapid growth of digital imaging technology and the accumulation of large collections of digital images has created the need for efficient and intelligent schemes for content-based image retrieval. Our goal is to organize the contents semantically, according to meaningful categories. We present a new approach for semantic classification that...
><p><em>Vibrio cholerae</em>, the causative agent of the severe diarrheal disease cholera, secretes several "accessory" toxins including RTX toxin, which causes cross-linking of the actin cytoskeleton. The rtx locus of <em>V. cholerae</em> is located adjacent to the integrated CTX? prophage. The RTX toxin itself is encoded by the <em>rtxA</em> gene found...
In response to construction activities and loads from permanent structures, soil generally is subjected to a variety of loading modes varying both in time and location. It also has been increasingly appreciated that the strains around well-designed foundations, excavations and tunnels are mostly small, with soil responses at this strain...
The transport properties of mayenite-based materials, Ca12Al14O33, were investigated. Systems studied included H-doped/ UV-irradiated Ca12Al14O33, Ca(12-x)MgxAl14O33 (x = 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.8, 1) and Ca12Al(14-x)SixO(33+x/2) (x = 1, 2, 3, 4). The as-prepared Ca12Al14O33 exhibited a room temperature electronic conductivity on the order of 10^-10 S/cm, and a high temperature...
There is increasing evidence that links chronic activation of glial cells and the subsequent self-propagating cycle of neuroinflammation to the neurodegenerative progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Nevertheless, attempts to identify currently approved drugs capable of safely attenuating the neuroinflammatory processes in AD have proven disappointing to date, and the development...
In the last decade we have seen tremendous increases in computer and network speeds and performance, resulting in the emergence of wide-area distributed computing. However, its potential has not been realized, primarily due to lack of security and isolation, provisioning issues and challenges involved in developing distributed applications.
We present...
Local structure determination in amorphous and disordered systems, which are crystallographically intractable, is critical for gaining an understanding of their properties. X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) is an excellent tool for local structure determination in amorphous and disordered environmental materials. Amorphous manganese oxides produced by the freshwater bacterium Leptothrix discophora SP6...
This dissertation presents submillimeter polarimetry methods and scientific results. The scientific results focus on revealing the magnetic field structure of giant molecular clouds (GMCs). The basic principles, instrumentation, observing strategy, and data analysis methods of submillimeter polarimetry are introduced. The scientific data were acquired by SPARO during the observing campaign...
In financial risk management, coherent risk measures have been proposed as a way to avoid undesirable properties of measures such as value at risk that discourage diversification and do not account for the magnitude of the largest, and therefore most serious, losses. A coherent risk measure equals the maximum expected...
Following dopaminergic denervation in Parkinson's Disease, firing patterns in several basal ganglia neuron populations are pathologically altered. In the globus pallidus (GP), this manifests as a loss of autonomous, rhythmic, high-frequency pacemaking and an appearance of correlated, oscillatory bursting. This oscillatory bursting is best disrupted through high-frequency stimulation of affected...
Reactivation of latent human cytomegalovirus is of significant concern in immunocompromised transplant patients. However, the mechanisms controlling reactivation of latent CMV have not been understood. It is likely that reactivation is initiated by induction of IE gene expression. In this thesis, I studied molecular mechanisms leading to transcriptional activation of...
Effective and reliable material and structure as bone implant have been a continuing challenge for scientists from bioengineering, material science and mechanical engineering. Porous titanium has reduced stiffness comparable to bone and open pores to allow complete bone infiltration, thus making it attractive for bone-replacement implants in biomedical engineering. To...
The Gram-negative bacterium <em> Vibrio cholerae </em> elicits disease through the export of enterotoxins. The <em> V. cholerae </em> RTX toxin was identified due its ability to cause cell rounding. Characterization of the RTX toxin demonstrated that this cell rounding was due to the depolymerization of the actin cytoskeleton through...
Many methods have been proposed for estimating the number, $m_0$ (or the proportion, $\pi_0$), of the true null hypotheses for adaptively controlling a type I error rate (e.g., the false discovery rate or FDR) using a multiple test procedure. Most of these methods eliminate ``significantly" non-null $p$-values. Then $m_0$ is...
This thesis interprets and critiques what is termed the 'myth of oneness' within the western philosophical and theological tradition, seeking to help transform South Korean Christianity, especially its perspective on other religions, and its attitude toward the reunification of Korea. Whitehead's process philosophy and its resulting theology, and the yin-yang...
While the rumors of "worship wars" dividing North American Protestantism are not news, ongoing questions remain concerning the effectiveness of trading in traditional organs for electric guitars and hymnals for PowerPoint. The recent availability of the largest, inter-faith-group, congregational-level data set (n=14,021) and theory development concerning the evolving attractive power...
CD4-positive T cells express ligands for E- and P-selectins, carbohydrate-binding adhesion molecules that are induced on inflamed endothelium. The interaction between selectins and the selectin ligands facilitates the migration of T cells to sites of inflammation. The fucosyltransferase FucT-VII is essential for selectin ligand formation but the signaling and transcriptional...
This dissertation examines the legal, sociological and strategic dimensions of the illegitimate organizational field of cocaine from 1880 to 1930. Volume I includes a comprehensive interdisciplinary examination of the concepts of legitimacy and illegitimacy. Building on existing theories, I also suggest a modest perspective for bringing consumer demand more fully...
The Wnt signalling pathway is used multiple times throughout the development of an organism. Early in embryonic development this path is known to be involved in the induction of the ectodermally derived neural crest. The Wnt pathway is also thought to function in other ectodermal cell types. How the same...
A Socratic ASK System: Helping educators provide a Web-based Socratic mentor for learners. An important role an educator can play in a learning environment is making learners aware of issues, nuances, and problems through Socratic questioning. Prior research has shown the potential of Socratic dialogue for increasing reflection and learning....
Regulation of cell cycle and cell death are critical for normal cellular proliferation, tissue homeostasis, animal development, and the pathogenesis of human diseases such as cancer. Irregularities in cell cycle and cell death may result in tumorigenesis. In this dissertation, I describe my studies of a novel gene C53, which...
Counteranion effects on the rate and stereochemistry of propylene polymerization mediated by ion-pair complexes derived from dimethylzirconocene precatalysts activated with strongly Lewis-acidic perfluoroarylmetalloid cocatalyst/activators are shown to arise from the strength of the cation-anion interaction. This is quantified using CS-symmetric Me2C(Cp)(Flu)ZrMe2 (Cp = C5H4, &#951;5 cyclopentadienyl; Flu = C13H8, &#951;5...
This study examines contemporary theatrical, filmic, and pictorial representations of Heinrich von Kleist's 1807 novella, "The Marquise of O--." It particularly focuses on the development of a solo music theatre production by a team of German/American, independent theatre artists, of which I was one, in the auditorium of the German...
Arsenic trioxide exhibits potent antitumor effects in vitro and in vivo, and is widely used in the treatment of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) in humans. In addition to APL, arsenic is of potential therapeutic value for the treatment of other hematologic malignancies, including chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). There is evidence...
Image creation is an attempt to record a scene for presentation to a viewer. However, there is a precarious mapping between how a scene would be perceived and how an image is perceived. For example, although the human visual system does not have a strong absolute sense of color or...
Research shows that the most effective way to teach learners targeted skills is to put them in the kinds of situations in which they need to use them and to provide experts who are able to advise learners when necessary (Schank & Cleary, 1995). Through this process, learners come to...
In the process of development of a multicellular organism, cells must make stable, binary fate decisions in response to intercellular signaling. A critical question is how weak or transient activation of signaling pathways achieves a robust and long-term switch in gene expression, and thus determines cell fate. I report that...
The formation of neuronal inclusions is one of the hallmarks of neurodegenerative diseases. These structures are composed of aggregated proteins, molecular chaperones, and components of the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS). Co-localization of aggregated proteins with cell-homeostasis maintaining machinery indicates that the cell may be failing in an attempt to clear these...
The polymerization of the microtubule-associated protein, tau, into insoluble filaments is common to Alzheimer's disease (AD) and in a variety of dementias. The conformational change required for tau to transition from soluble monomers to filamentous AD pathology involves the extreme N-terminus of tau coming into contact with other regions of...
This dissertation is an ethnography that uses semi-structured interviews, field notes, and participant observation to explore how two religious congregations respond to survivors of domestic violence. I interviewed twenty-two parishioners including domestic violence survivors, clergy and bystanders. I transcribed these interviews verbatim using Agar's method of transcript handling. I used...
Four series of doped CdO thin films have been grown on both amorphous glass and single-crystal MgO(100) substrates by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), and their phase structure, microstructure, electrical, and optical properties investigated. Epitaxial films grown on single-crystal MgO(100) exhibit biaxial, highly textured microstructures. These as-deposited doped CdO thin...
The dissertation analyzes five well-known “Bildungsromane” published roughly between 1785 and 1914 (Karl Philipp Moritz’s Anton Reiser (1785), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795), Gottfried Keller’s Der grüne Heinrich (1879), Franz Kafka’s Der Verschollene (1914), Thomas Mann’s Die Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull (1913/1955)) and investigates the ways...
In Chapter 1, a series of "constrained geometry" organoactinide complexes, (CGC)An(NMe)2 (CGC = Me2Si(h5-Me4C5)(tBuN); An = Th, 1; U, 2), prepared via efficient in situ, two-step protodeamination routes in good yields and high purity, is presented. Both 1 and 2 are quantitatively converted to the neutrally charged, solvent-free dihalides (1-Cl2,...
Analytical lower and upper bounds for the average error probability in M-ary quantum detection are derived. The upper bound is valid when the state ensemble, which can consist of pure or mixed states, satisfies a certain linear independence condition. The lower bound is generally valid and also has a classical...
The objective of this study was to determine the relationship between descending motor pathway reorganization and abnormal coordination, defined as a reduced set of muscle coactivation patterns between shoulder and elbow muscles in hemiparetic chronic stroke subjects, using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Specifically, we wanted to 1) determine the relationship...
A number of nonclassical MHC Ib molecules recognizing distinct microbial antigens have been implicated in the immune response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). Due to the low polymorphism of MHC Ib molecules within the human population, these molecules and Mtb antigens are attractive targets for better vaccine development. Among these, HLA-E...