In this thesis I present the theoretical work on Fermionic surface states, and bulk Bosonic collective excitations in topological superfluids and superconductors. Broken symmetries in topological condensed matter systems have implications for the spectrum of Fermionic excitations confined on surfaces or topological defects.
For the B-phase of superfluid 3He, which...
The purpose of this research is to apply a sociocultural lens to examine students’ perceptions of usefulness in mathematics. It is important to explore perceptions of usefulness, as teachers are increasingly being encouraged to help their students view mathematics as useful. However, we know little about how students – and...
Herpes stromal keratitis (HSK) is a potentially blinding inflammatory condition initiated by corneal infection with herpes simplex virus (HSV). As its name suggests, the host receptor herpes virus entry mediator (HVEM) facilitates HSV entry through interactions with a viral envelope glycoprotein. HVEM also bridges several signaling networks, binding ligands from...
Fungi have an immense untapped store of natural products, small molecules that can often be repurposed as pharmaceuticals. The genes that encode secondary metabolic machinery are often genomically co-localized into biosynthetic gene clusters. Because of the immense energetic costs that goes into producing the biosynthetic pathway and its products, strict...
The circadian clock is a biological oscillator present in all terrestrial life forms that aligns organismal functions with the daily rising and setting of the sun. In mammals clocks are expressed both in pacemaker cells in the brain that are directly entrained by light as well as in all peripheral...
The ability to track labeled cancer cells in vivo would allow researchers to study their distribution, growth and metastatic potential within the intact organism. Magnetic Resonance (MR) imaging is invaluable for tracking cancer cells in vivo as it benefits from high spatial resolution and absence of ionizing radiation. However, many...
Short-wave infrared (SWIR) photon detection has become an essential technology in the modern world. Sensitive SWIR detectors with low noise levels, and high signal-to-noise-ratios are highly desirable for a variety of applications including light detection and ranging, optical tomography, and astronomical imaging. As such many efforts in infrared detector research...
CD1 molecules represent a class of antigen presenting molecules that present lipid antigens to cognate T cells. These molecules have been identified in all mammals examined so far. Unlike MHC molecules, which are highly polymorphic, CD1 molecules exhibit limited polymorphism and are divided in to two groups – 1 and...
Patients with the Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) clinical syndrome have diverse forms of neuropathology, one of which is the cellular and molecular abnormalities of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), at post mortem autopsy. Structural anatomical differences might aid in ante mortem differential diagnosis of neuropathology. The studies in this dissertation investigated one...
By 2020, there will be more than 200 billion sensor enabled objects world-wide in the Internet of Things (IoT). The biggest challenge of future IoT is to provide ultra scalable wireless access for a massive number of devices. The goal of this thesis is to build up a model for...