Now showing items 1-60 of 12744

• #### Monitoring on Graphs: An Exploration into k-Cores, Zero Forcing, and Power Domination ﻿

(2019-10-16)
This thesis will cover various computational models for approximating and solving multiple graph monitoring problems. The first problem of interest is the Minimum k-core problem, which asks for the smallest induced subgraph ...
• #### Newton-Based Methods for Smoothed Risk-Averse PDE-Constrained Optimization Problems ﻿

(2019-10-09)
This thesis introduces a modification for traditional, Newton-based methods to improve the efficiency of solving smoothed, risk-averse PDE-constrained optimization problems arising from optimal control applications. Instead ...
• #### A Constructional Reanalysis of Semantic Prosody ﻿

(2019-10-09)
This dissertation is a re-examination of semantic prosody within the framework of construction grammar. The basic idea of semantic prosody is that ostensibly neutral words can have a probabilistic tendency to co-occur with ...
• #### Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 2: Americanism, Tradition and Modernism in its Relationship to W.H. Auden's The Age of Anxiety ﻿

(2019-10-04)
Bernstein's Second Symphony, titled The Age of Anxiety after W.H. Auden's epic poem of the same name, is an essentially American work. In this document, I explore the relationship between Bernstein's symphony and Auden's ...
• #### Noise Processes in Atomic-Scale Junctions and Two-Dimensional Topological Insulators ﻿

(2019-10-03)
Standard transport measurements, focusing on the first moment of the current, are crucial for understanding the behavior of a system as a function of factors such as applied voltage or current, temperature, or external ...
• #### Energy Storage Capacity and Superconductivity of Nanosized Titanium Diboride, and Multifunctionality of Carbon-based Nanostructures: Development of Nano-engineered Solutions ﻿

(2019-09-30)
Nanotechnology has risen into prominence since the discovery of the “buckyball” in 1985,2 due to the enhanced tunability and performance of nanomaterials.3 Keenly awaited, scalable and facile application of nanotechnology, ...
• #### 1T-TaS₂: A strongly correlated material for tunable nanophotonics ﻿

(2019-09-24)
Tunable nanophotonics have been demonstrated for several decades and achieved to practical applications in real world in multiple ways such as imaging, sensing, signal processing, information communication and etc. Many ...
• #### Wirelessly Powered Sensor Design with On-Chip Antenna in CMOS Technology ﻿

(2019-09-23)
In recent years, we have experienced a significant growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), wireless sensor network (WSN) and bio-implantable devices. There are 7 billion of IoT devices in use in 2018, which starts to surpass ...
• #### Spectroscopy of ⁸⁷Sr Rydberg Atoms and Molecules ﻿

(2019-09-16)
Spectroscopy of ⁸⁷Sr Rydberg Atoms and Molecules This dissertation describes the development of an apparatus to undertake spectroscopic studies of ⁸⁷Sr Rydberg states and their application in the production of ...
• #### Chromosomal, lexical, and neurobiological mechanisms of cognitive reappraisal and how they relate to health indicators ﻿

(2019-09-12)
The ability to regulate emotion positively impacts one’s mental and physical health. One adaptive emotion regulation strategy is cognitive reappraisal, which involves changing one’s appraisal of an aversive situation to ...
• #### Development and Characterization of Split Methyl Halide Transferase for Biosensor Applications in Soil ﻿

(2019-09-10)
Soil microorganisms contribute to agricultural productivity by forming symbiosis with plant roots and affecting the solubility of soil nutrients. Microbiological activity in soil can be monitored directly by coupling the ...
• #### Derivation and Numerical of Oxygen Transport ﻿

(2019-09-09)
Modeling and simulating the transport of oxygen in blood provides critical insight on the planning of cardiovascular surgeries. Mathematical simulation provides a quantitative angle on the understanding of changes in ...
• #### Two-photon photoassociative spectroscopy of strontium-86 ﻿

(2019-09-06)
This dissertation describes two-photon photoassociation to the least-bound vibrational level of the X$^1\Sigma_g^+$ electronic ground state of the $^{86}$Sr$_2$ dimer, which represents the first observation of this naturally ...
• #### Examining the Social Identity of Being a Muslim in the American Workplace ﻿

(2019-08-29)
Religion is often seen as a taboo and controversial topic in the workplace; however, it also plays an important role in many people’s lives. Over the past few decades, the religious landscape of the American workforce has ...
• #### Multicomponent Chalcogenides ﻿

(2019-08-27)
Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), a class of two-dimensional (2D) materials, are proposed to be the next generation materials for optoelectronic, spintronic, and valleytronic devices due to their direct semiconducting ...
• #### Low-Latency Massive MIMO Design over Practical Channels ﻿

(2019-08-26)
With the emerging time-critical applications, low-latency communication is the focus of the next-generation wireless network, which is labeled as 5G. One of the key enabling technologies of 5G is massive MIMO or base-stations ...
• #### Software-based Baseband Processing for Massive MIMO ﻿

(2019-08-13)
Large-Scale multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) is a key technology for improving spectral efficiency. However, it requires massive, real-time computation. All existing solutions are based on dedicated, specialized ...
• #### The Aesthetics of the Green Revolution: Art, Architecture and the Agrilogistics of Development between the United States and Latin America , 1930-1972 ﻿

(2019-08-09)
This dissertation analyzes the art, architecture, and agrilogistics linking Nelson Rockefeller’s Cold War cultural agenda in Latin America to the techno-scientific transformation of agriculture now known as the Green ...
• #### Deformation Dynamics of Wet Foams and Bubbles in Wide Microfluidic Channels ﻿

(2019-08-09)
A prominent feature of microfluidics is the ability to generate monodisperse bubbles (or droplets) of tunable volumes and densities, which rapidly self-order under the confinement of the channels. The geometric and ...
• #### An Osseointegration-aware, Sintering-aware Agent-Based Modeling Framework for Additively Manufactured Orthopedic Implants ﻿

(2019-08-09)
The orthopedic industry is still searching for an efficient way to replace bone lost due to surgical procedures such as arthroplasty and limb-sparing surgery. Additive manufacturing (AM) presents an opportunity to manufacture ...
• #### Analysis and Application of a Realtime Closed-loop Hippocampal Sharp-wave Ripple Disruption System ﻿

(2019-08-09)
Closed-loop modulation of neural activity facilitates causal tests of hypothesis to link temporal neural circuit functions to behavior and cognition. One such dynamically-changing neural circuit in the brain is the ...
• #### Photothermoelectric effect study in gold nanowires ﻿

(2019-08-09)
The thermoelectric effect is the conversion of electrical to thermal energy and vice versa, and it is of great interest in energy harvesting, cooling mechanisms based on the Peltier effect, and photodetectors based on the ...
• #### Core Analysis and Core-Log Integration for Evaluation of Unconventional Formations ﻿

(2019-08-09)
Unconventional resources are of great importance in the global energy supply. This thesis develops new techniques and presents fundamental research serving unconventional formations evaluation for the petroleum industry. First, ...
• #### Three Essays on CEO Severance Pay ﻿

(2019-08-09)
The majority of CEOs at U.S. public companies are promised severance pay in their compensation packages, yet researchers have thus far rarely considered the importance of these arrangements. This dissertation consists of ...
• #### Thermodynamics of Rigid Rod Polyelectrolytes with Focus on CNT-Superacid Solutions and Second Virial Theory of Finite Rods ﻿

(2019-08-09)
This thesis investigates the thermodynamics of rigid rod polyelectrolytes for carbon nanotube (CNT) - superacid solutions by classical acid-base chemistry and for finite rods by second virial theory. For CNT-superacids, ...
• #### In vivo Fluorescence Imaging with Lensless Microscopes ﻿

(2019-08-08)
Fluorescence microscopy is an essential tool for studying the brain. Not only can it provide sub-cellular information about brain structure, but it can also capture dynamic electrical and chemical activity from calcium- ...
• #### Implantable integrated nanophotonic probes with light sheet illumination for deep imaging ﻿

(2019-08-08)
Optical techniques to record and stimulate neural activity are becoming increasingly powerful and effective, but delivering light to specific regions deep within the brain is limited by the scattering of neural tissue. By ...
• #### Male Allies and Gender Equity: Exploring the Explanatory Mechanisms ﻿

(2019-08-08)
This research examines three potential theories that might explain why men respond more favorably to men (than women) who advocate for women’s equal rights: Attributional Analysis of Persuasion (Petty, Fleming, Priester, ...
• #### Plant Interactions with Other Organisms ﻿

(2019-08-08)
With pressures on food availability, improved plant crop productivity and nutritional value are important. To increase crop yield, research into optimizing plant defenses against pests and pathogens can inform new strategies. ...
• #### Shear Fracture Growth in Granular Rocks and Porosity-Permeability Relationships in Mudstones ﻿

(2019-08-07)
I employ the Discrete Element Method to analyze the micromechanical response of granular rocks to unstable failure. Calibrated granular models of sandstone and granite are subjected to biaxial experiments under confining ...
• #### Utilization of Asphaltenes as Inexpensive and Abundant Precursors of Novel Carbon-Based Nanomaterials ﻿

(2019-08-07)
Asphaltene deposition causes many difficulties and imposes challenging flow assurance problems for the oil industry throughout the globe. Asphaltenes are the heaviest and most polarizable fraction of crude oil. They have ...
• #### Role of Chemokine Signaling and Heparin Binding Growth Factors During Ocular Neurovascular Patterning ﻿

(2019-08-07)
The embryonic eye provides a unique context in which we can study the mechanisms of neurovascular patterning and wound healing. The anterior eye requires highly regulated signaling for the proper formation of an avascular, ...
• #### Birth in Crisis: Public Policy and the Humanization of Childbirth in Brazil ﻿

(2019-08-07)
This dissertation is about shifting paradigms of care in childbirth. Based on over eight years of experience with Brazil and 24 months of ethnographic research for this project, I track the implementation of Rede Cegonha ...
• #### Efficiency Limit of Far- and Near-field Thermophotovoltaic Energy Conversion ﻿

(2019-07-31)
Thesis Title: Efficiency Limit of Far- and Near-field Thermophotovoltaic Energy Conversion Ever increasing energy demand worldwide coupled with environmental concern forces the current fossil-fuel based energy paradigm ...
• #### Tissue-Engineered Tumor Microenvironments for Bone Sarcoma ﻿

(2019-07-30)
Preclinical methods interrogation of cancer biology and of evaluation of potential therapeutics rely heavily on the use of monolayer, adherent culture on tissue culture treated polystyrene dishes. However, these techniques ...
• #### Multi-Cultural Usability Assessment with System Usability Scale ﻿

(2019-07-30)
The System Usability Scale (SUS) is a non-proprietary and technology-agnostic instrument that measures the subjective usability of products and systems. Besides its popularity in the English Human Factors community, the ...
• #### Association Studies in Human Cancers: Metabolic Expression Subtypes and Somatic Mutations/Germline Variations ﻿

(2019-07-29)
Cancer is a highly complex genetic disease caused by certain gene mutations. This thesis focuses on two critical categories of association studies for human cancers: associations between tumor metabolic subtypes and various ...
• #### Investigation Into The Synthesis And Characterization Of Two-dimensional Molybdenum-based Dichalcogenide Alloys and Oxides And Their Properties ﻿

(2019-07-29)
Two-dimensional materials have been proposed as the basis of a number of upcoming applications due to their exciting electronic, optical, mechanical, and physico-chemical properties. This was experimentally demonstrated ...
• #### New Insights into the Mitigation of Asphaltene Deposition and the Utilization of Asphaltene Deposits ﻿

(2019-07-26)
Asphaltene deposition is an ongoing flow assurance problem in the oil and gas industry that is associated with huge economic loss. Different aspects to this problem which includes asphaltene stability, asphaltene deposition ...
• #### Designing miniature computational cameras for photography, microscopy, and artificial intelligence ﻿

(2019-07-25)
The fields of robotics, Internet of things, health-monitoring, neuroscience, and many others have consistently trended toward miniaturization of sensing devices over the past few decades. This miniaturization has enabled ...
• #### Entry of Freestanding Emergency Departments in Texas – A series of Economic Studies ﻿

(2019-07-19)
This dissertation consists of three essays which examine the location choice and emergency care market competition with the entry of freestanding emergency departments (FrEDs) in Texas, U.S.A. As the innovative health care ...
• #### Essays in Financial Economics ﻿

(2019-07-19)
Financial markets often feature interactions between agents who do not have the same amount of information about a ﬁnancial asset. The presence of asymmetric information in ﬁnancial market interactions has signiﬁcant ...
• #### Light Emission from Single Plasmonic Nanoparticles ﻿

(2019-07-19)
The precise mechanism of light emission from metallic plasmonic nanoparticles is a contested issue. Photoluminescence and electronic Raman scattering are two different views proposed to explain the observed emission from ...
• #### A synthetic system for asymmetric cell division in Escherichia coli ﻿

(2019-07-16)
One defining property of stem cells is their ability to differentiate via asymmetric cell division, in which a stem cell creates a differentiated daughter cell but retains its own phenotype. Here, I describe a synthetic ...
• #### Theoretical Investigation of Collective Molecular Motors Dynamics ﻿

(2019-07-08)
Motor proteins, also known as biological molecular motors, play important roles in supporting and maintaining various processes inside the cell. Molecular motors perform tasks such as copying and repairing nucleic acids, ...
• #### Protein Aggregation in the Formation of Long Term Memory and Neurodegenerative Diseases ﻿

(2019-07-02)
The formation of intra- and extra-cellular amyloid fibres through protein aggregation are traditionally coupled to a series of devastating and incurable neurodegenerative disorders, as well as functional implications. ...
• #### Protein Aggregation in the Formation of Long Term Memory and Neurodegenerative Diseases ﻿

(2019-07-02)
The formation of intra- and extra-cellular amyloid fibres through protein aggregation are traditionally coupled to a series of devastating and incurable neurodegenerative disorders, as well as functional implications. ...
• #### Probing Cooperative Phenomena in Solids by Terahertz Magnetospectroscopy ﻿

(2019-07-01)
Cooperative phenomena emerge in condensed matter when interactions between the constituent particles significantly impact, or even govern, the quantum dynamics of the system. The system then exhibits phases and properties ...
• #### Latent variable models for hippocampal sequence analysis ﻿

(2019-06-27)
Place cell activity of hippocampal pyramidal cells has been described as the cognitive substrate of spatial memory. Indeed, the activity of ensembles of neurons within the hippocampus is thought to enable memory formation, ...
• #### Gas Chromatography Study of Sulfur Removal from Jet Fuel Using Nanoporous Materials ﻿

(2019-06-25)
Adsorptive desulfurization has been studied as a promising process to produce low-sulfur liquid fuels that achieve more stringent regulations. Although the process has proved to be effective to remove sulfur compounds from ...
• #### Stochastic Dynamics of Cancer-Immune System co-Evolution ﻿

(2019-06-19)
Immunotherapy has revolutionized cancer treatment by delivering durable remission outcomes to many cancer patients in recent years. T-cell immunotherapy relies on enhancing or replacing immune cells, which can recognize ...
• #### Chicana/o Literature and the Folkloric Difference ﻿

(2019-06-17)
This dissertation examines the folkloric underpinnings of the Mexican American literary archive by reading Mexican American literature and cultural expression through the analytic I call the folkloric difference. Through ...
• #### New Age Romanticism and the Afterlives of William Blake ﻿

(2019-06-13)
This project examines the afterlives of British Romanticism in the American and British New Age movements that emerged in the 1970s and ‘80s, in relation to Romantic-era and twentieth-century challenges to received ideas ...
• #### Proximity by Proxy: Contemporary Literature and Cultural Theory in the Age of Social Media ﻿

(2019-06-12)
New media technologies such as Web 2.0 have had a significant effect on the aesthetics, politics, and reception structures of twenty-first century literary and cultural production. This project explores a number of texts ...
• #### Fragility and Risk Assessment of Aboveground Storage Tanks during Storm Events ﻿

(2019-06-10)
Aboveground storage tanks (ASTs) have suffered severe damage during past storm events, resulting in the release of hazardous chemicals in the environment. For instance, more than 30 million liters of oil products were ...
• #### Transformation and morphological impact of low-frequency waves during hurricane attack ﻿

(2019-06-05)
Field measurements of wave, current, and sediment dynamics in the nearshore environment during extreme events are scarce due to energetic waves and rapid bed level changes that can damage or shift instrumentation. ...
• #### GEM Incorporating Context into Genomic Distance Estimation ﻿

(2019-06-04)
A pivotal question in computational biology is how similar two organisms are based on their genomic sequences. Unfortunately, classical sequence alignment-based methods for estimating genomic distances do not scale well ...
• #### Biofilm-Mediated Regulation of Siderophore Production in Pseudomonas aeruginosa ﻿

(2019-06-04)
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a gram-negative, multidrug-resistant, nosocomial pathogen that threatens the lives of immunocompromised patients. A key virulence factor in this pathogen is the siderophore pyoverdine. Due to its ...
• #### The importance of political parties for voters in Latin America ﻿

(2019-05-24)
This dissertation examines the importance that parties have for voters in Latin America in three main aspects: as information shortcuts, as a social identity, and as a key piece of information needed to hold governments ...
• #### Advanced Optical Studies of Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes Wrapped with Single-Stranded DNA ﻿

(2019-05-23)
Single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) exist in a variety of discrete structures, giving distinct optical and electronic properties. Purification of as-grown SWCNTs and sorting of SWCNT mixtures into pure (n,m) fractions ...